NEW DELHI: Starting from April 1, the center has made it mandatory to connect the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) beneficiary ID with the Ayushman Bharat Health Account ID.
According to an office memorandum by CGHS Director Manoj Jain, “the linking of CGHS beneficiary ID with ABHA ID shall be completed within 30 days by all existing CGHS beneficiaries.”
“It has now been decided that linking of CGHS beneficiary ID with ABHA ID shall be mandatory w.e.f 15t April 2024,” said the March 28 notice issued from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The idea to link the CGHS beneficiary ID with the ABHA ID is to create digital health identification of CGHS beneficiaries and store their digital health records.
Integrating the IDs is expected to broaden the hospital options available to patients, too.
Nearly 42 lakh beneficiaries, including media, in 80 cities are covered under the CGHS scheme. The center aims to include more cities to improve the accessibility of the services.
The CGHS scheme was started in 1954 to provide comprehensive health care to central government employees, pensioners, and dependent family members.
Ayushman Bharat, known popularly as Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PM-JAY), is a national health protection scheme, which will cover over ten crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) providing coverage upto 5 lakh rupees per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization.
To create a national digital health ecosystem, the center later launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). It aims to develop the backbone necessary to support the integrated digital health infrastructure of the country.
ABHA is a unique health identifier as a random 14-digit number. As of January 24, 2024, 52,50,15,110 ABHA Numbers have been created. The ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) number will uniquely identify persons, authenticate them, and thread their health records (only with the patient's informed consent) across multiple systems and stakeholders.