Harsh Vardhan's 'name & shame' list to curb frauds under AB-PMJAY

Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Harsh Vardhan on September 30, while addressing ‘Arogya Manthan’ organised on the first anniversary of Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (AB-PMJAY), said that the names of around 100 hospitals involved in malpractices have been put up on the official website of the Ayushman Bharat. The names have been put up under the government's initiative of 'name and shame' to create a sort of deterrence amongst the hospitals and prevent such involvements in the near future. Ayushman Bharat was launched in 2017 under the recommendation of National Health Policy 2017, to achieve the vision of Universal Health Coverage (UHC). The Union Health Minister also said that in order to encourage hospitals, the government was planning to launch a 'name and fame' initiative under the scheme to felicitate well-performing hospitals. 

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Names of 111 hospitals involved in fraud put up on AB-PMJAY website

The Union Minister, while addressing the 'Arogya Manthan', said "The government has a zero-tolerance policy towards corruption and malpractices. It is because of this that names of around 111 hospitals which have been de-empanelled have been put up on the official website of the AB-PMJAY as a part of our 'name and shame' initiative." "We are also planning to implement a new initiative called the ‘name and fame’ initiative to felicitate those hospitals which are performing well under AB-PMJAY so that they are encouraged and their best practices can be emulated by others,” he added. 

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Harsh Vardhan said that nearly 1,200 cases of fraud have been confirmed and stringent action was taken against 338 hospitals. All this was possible due to a strong fraud prevention, detection and control system which has proved to be critical for PMJAY to ensure that these kind of frauds are prevented and quickly detected if attempted, he added.

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He also said that FIRs were lodged against six hospitals under AB-PMJAY and penalties amounting to over ₹1.5 crore have been levied. The Union Health Minister also stated that over 32 states and union territories already implementing the scheme and said that he was upset that the citizens of remaining four states that have not implemented the scheme cannot reap benefits of AB-PMJAY. Harsh Vardhan also congratulated the entire team of AB-PMJAY which was instrumental in the application of the scheme according to the Prime Minister's vision using technology and science.

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