Arogya Sanjeevani a boon to AYUSH treatments

Arogya Sanjeevani, the standard health insurance policy announced recently by the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDAI), seems to have done away with the earlier provision that National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare providers (NABH) approval is a must for getting health insurance benefits from hospitals in the ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, unani, siddha, sowa rigpa and homoeopathy (AYUSH) sectors.

According to the new guidelines issued by the IRDAI on January 1, an AYUSH hospital is “a health-care facility wherein medical, surgical, or para-surgical treatment procedures and interventions are carried out by AYUSH medical practitioners”. To get the health insurance benefits, the AYUSH hospital should have at least five inpatient beds. It should be supervised round the clock by an AYUSH medical practitioner. The hospital should have dedicated therapy sections under medical rules and a well-equipped operation theatre. The hospital should keep a daily record of patients and make them accessible to the insurance company’s representatives.

The IRDAI had on November 26 issued guidelines saying that reimbursement facility at the AYUSH hospitals was subject to the certification by the NABH. These hospitals were asked to obtain either a pre-entry- level certificate or a higher-entry-level certificate issued by the NABH or a State-level certificate or a higher-level certificate under the National Quality Assurance Standards issued by the National Health Systems Resources Centre. Those running small private hospitals in the Ayurveda sector in the State were not happy with these provisions as only over a dozen of the total 1,000 such institutions are NABH certified now. Only around 70 private Ayurveda hospitals had been certified by the NABH across the country.

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