600 Haryana Hospitals to Suspend Ayushman Bharat Services over Rs 400 Crore Dues
Chandigarh: The Haryana unit of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) announced on Sunday that around 600 private hospitals across the state will cease providing services under the Ayushman Bharat scheme from February 3. The decision follows the government's failure to clear pending reimbursements totalling Rs 400 crore.
In a letter to the CEO of Ayushman Bharat Haryana, Panchkula, the association highlighted their concerns and urged the government to allocate a dedicated budget of approximately Rs 2,000 crore annually for the scheme, as the Chief Minister has expressed strong support for it.
The Ayushman Bharat scheme, aimed at providing healthcare services to economically disadvantaged families, has been a critical lifeline for many patients. The scheme can provide free healthcare up to Rs 5 lakh per family in a year. However, the delay in reimbursements has created significant operational challenges for hospitals.
“Ayushman (PMJAY) is an ambitious project of our Honourable Prime Minister Shree Narender Modiji. Empanelled hospitals in Haryana have been enthusiastically participating in this scheme since its launch in 2018. Unfortunately, the launch of Chirayu Cards in Nov 2022 made payments very erratic. We have been giving representations to the authorities for the same for the last two years," the association stated.
IMA Haryana met Chief Minister Haryana Nayab Singh Saini on 8th January 2025 regarding the immediate release of pending dues. But even after 15 days have passed, the members have not received any significant amount and even the amounts received have large unwarranted deductions. Following this, IMA submitted the letter stating, “We have been again approached by all empanelled hospitals of Haryana to act on their behalf and inform you that if the following demands are not met soon, they will be forced to suspend Ayushman services from 3rd February 2025. This will cause unnecessary hassle to the poor people of Haryana and the responsibility for the same will fall with your department.”
Talking to Medical Dialogues, Dr Mahavir Jain, president of IMA (Haryana) stated, “We understand the benefits of the scheme for the economically weaker section of the society but how will the doctors run the facilities if they keep on giving free treatment with huge dues at hand. How will they clear the payment of staff, and purchase medicines and surgical instruments? The last payment that the hospitals received was in August 2024. There should be a systematic way of clearing the payment.”
“The delayed payment should be accounted for Interest on delayed payments should be calculated as per the MoU and paid to all the concerned hospitals,” he further added.
The association demanded that all pending dues should be paid immediately and a system must be developed that no deductions should be done once approval has been given. It can be done pre-approval after confirming all documents but making any deductions after approval is not logical. Moreover, there are many shortcomings in the TMS 2 (AB-PMJAY Transaction Management System) portal. It should be fixed immediately and till then we should be shifted back to TMS 1.
