How To Avail The Benefit Of Ayushman Bharat Yojana or Arogya Karnataka?

Ayushman Bharat Yojana has the distinction of world’s largest health insurance coverage scheme. It is called Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana or National Health Protection Scheme.

It is a centrally sponsored scheme launched in 2018 through an announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Under the Ayushman Bharat Mission of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, all the needy patients are provided best quality health care at a free/ affordable rate.

In Karnataka, the scheme is merged with the Arogya Karnataka scheme. Under the arrangement, in Karnataka the below the health schemes are all merged with the Arogya Karnataka Scheme.

Vajpayee Arogyashree, Yeshaswini Scheme
Rajiv Arogya Bhagya Scheme
Rashtriya Bala Swasthaya Karyakram (RBSK)
RashtriyaSwasthayaBimaYojana (RSBY) including RSBY for senior citizens
Cochlear Implant Scheme
Mukhyamantri Santwana Harish Scheme, Indira Suraksha Yojane

The scheme is made available across all the government and empanelled private hospitals. But one of the pre requirements required to avail this service is Arogya Karnataka health card.

Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust is implementing the scheme in Karnataka

Read: Karnataka Janasevaka Scheme

How To Get Your Arogya Karnataka Card

In Karnataka, Arogya Karnataka card is distributed to the general public based on his / her Aadhar Card number. The card is generated by using e patient’s biometric impression through a biometric device and authenticated with CIDR Aadhar Server. The E-KYC details will be auto generated.

In case there is a failure in reading the bio metric impression of the beneficiary wishing to enroll, other options such as “OTP”, capturing data from the QR code and getting data from the Food Department’s database are provided.

Arogya Karnataka – Enrolment Centres

In all the Bangalore One centres in Bengaluru and Karnataka One centres in rest of the Karnataka the general public can register their names and get Arogya Karnataka card by paying Rs.30. The public need to produce their Aadhar cards.

Whether Arogya Karnataka Card Is Necessary?

In the emergency situations, the cards are generated at the government hospitals manually.

How To Avail The Scheme Benefit

Under the scheme, the patients need to get admitted in a government hospital first. After a screening by the government hospital doctors, a letter will be generated by the authorities indicating required procedure/ operation facility is not available in the hospital and the patient can be shifted to any private notified hospital. Based on this letter, free treatment will be provided at the private hospitals.

A total number of 1,650 treatments/ procedures are available under the scheme in the government/ private hospitals.

The list of procedures/ operations can be availed by clicking here.

The Network Hospitals

Under the scheme, free treatment is available in all the government hospitals. However not all private hospitals provide free treatment under the scheme. This facility is available only in the notified network hospitals across the state. These notified network hospitals can be found here.

Advantage Of Arogya Karnataka

In an emergency, the patients need not wait for the card or the referral by the government hospital doctors. They can get admitted to any private hospital that is staffed.

Short Coming Of Arogya Karnataka

Only BPL families are provided with free treatment. APL cardholders need to pay 70% of the hospital bills.
There is no provision for daily expenses.
Government hospitals can only refer patients who can’t be treated at the government facility.