NEW DELHI: In encouraging news for the Ayushman Bharat programme, around 68% of the some 2.3 lakh beneficiaries to be admitted to hospitals under the scheme received treatment in private hospitals with Gujarat , along with TN, Maharashtra and West Bengal , topping the list.Under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana — the secondary and tertiary care arm of the government-funded health insurance scheme — 2,32,592 beneficiaries received hospitalisation under in less than two months of its rollout on Sept 23, according to data compiled by the National Health Agency (NHA). The data show that oral and maxillofacial surgery , general surgery, ophthalmology and gynaecology were among the most sought-after treatments during hospitalisation.As these include head surgeries, there is a possibility that accident cases constitute a significant number of claims. These statistics assume significance as initially private hospitals had expressed concerns about the low pricing of packages fixed by NHA. This had also led to speculation about the take-off and spread of the scheme, which requires a network of empanelled hospitals for patients to seek care across the country.The data shows NHA has so far received 55,482 applications for hospital empanelment. Out of this, nearly 15,000 hospitals have either been empanelled or are in the pipeline following approvals. Around 8,000 empanelled hospitals are from the private sector. “Costing issues are primarily in Delhi and in other metro cities where the cost of services and human resources is high. Otherwise, the response in tier 2 and 3 cities in states like Haryana , UP, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh is tremendous,” says Dinesh Arora, deputy chief executive of Ayushman Bharat.Through Ayushman Bharat, the government is targeting to increase healthcare accessibility while reducing out-of-pocket expenditure on health. While out-of-pocket payments constitute over 60% of health financing in India, many are still deprived of tertiary care because of its high cost.“Our target is to increase accessibility of tertiary care by 6,000 to 7,000 patients per day,” Arora said.PMJAY, dubbed as Modicare, aims to cover nearly 50 crore beneficiaries from 10.74 crore deprived families with an annual cashless health cover of Rs 5 lakh per family.