Soon, victims of road accidents will receive free treatment worth up to Rs 1.5 lakh across India under the Ayushman Bharat programme

Soon, all road accident victims will be offered free, cashless medical treatment at Ayushman Bharat-supported hospitals across India. The treatment cost is capped at Rs 150,000 and covers hospital stay of up to seven days.

The initiative is taken by the National Health Authority (NHA), in collaboration with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), to provide cashless trauma and polytrauma care services to victims of road accidents caused due to use of motor vehicles on roads of all categories.

NHA is the umbrella organization that runs the world's largest publicly funded health insurance scheme, Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY). The scheme was recently expanded to include senior citizens above 70 years of age.

In addition to caring for the elderly and mapping their treatment, the software managed by the NHA also matches the IDs of accident victims with the patient registration ID to enable smooth data exchange across the platform and ensure that every victim of a road accident receives treatment.

Hospitals offer free treatment to Indians, NRIs and foreigners

According to a letter from the NHA to all participating states and union territories, the cashless system will be made available to all Indian citizens, non-resident Indians (NRIs) and foreign nationals. “Treatment of road accident victims will be provided by hospitals approved under the AB-PMJAY,” said the letter, seen by News18.

The cashless scheme aims to provide treatment to trauma and polytrauma road accident victims up to Rs 150,000 per accident per person for a period not exceeding seven days from the date of accident.

“In case the victim of a road accident is a beneficiary of any other scheme of the Central Government or State Government/Union Territories regime providing similar benefits, treatment under this scheme must be exhausted before the other schemes,” said the letter by Dr Akshay Jain, Deputy Director, NHA.

The hospitals approved under the scheme will provide treatment to eligible victims under the Trauma and Polytrauma Care schemes developed by the NHA specifically for this scheme using health insurance packages, 2022.

“Pre-authorisation and processing of claims will be done by SHAs or the insurance company (in case of insurance/hybrid implementation mode). Payment of approved claims will be done through MoRTH escrow accounts.”

All states and union territories have been asked to inform all participating hospitals in the Ayushman Bharat ecosystem to provide cashless medical trauma care to road accident victims under the programme.

“The unique identifier of a road accident victim in eDAR, i.e. the Accident (Victim) ID, will be mapped to the TMS Treatment/Patient Registration ID to enable smooth data exchange across the platform and to ensure that only road accident victims seek treatment,” the letter said.

Launched in 2018, Ayushman Bharat is considered a groundbreaking healthcare initiative to provide universal health coverage, especially to rural and vulnerable populations.

The programme aims to comprehensively meet health needs at primary, secondary and tertiary care levels and is based on the central government's commitment to improving access to health care.