AIIMS Odisha offers prepaid smart card option for all services

Sambad English Bureau Published On : May 16, 2015 at 10:02 PM

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, May 16:

The Odisha centre of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has started a prepaid smart card service, which will offer cashless hospitalization for card holding patients who frequent the hospital.

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“This is a smart card that patients or their attendants can obtain after paying a certain amount. The memory chip in the card will store the payment and transaction details of the patient. The card holder patients will no longer have to go through the trouble of paying test and treatment bills separately. They can use the card for all the services such as registration, diagnostics, bed and surgical consumables,” said Director of AIIMS Bhubaneswar Ashok Kumar Mohapatra.

“The card can be recharged for a certain amount and topped up later based on requirement. It will be a free card and will be valid for 1 year,” said Ambika Prasad Mohanty, a professor of AIIMS.

The present system is too much of a trouble for the patients and their caretakers because they need to make payment at one counter and produce the receipt at another and repeat the process for every test the patient goes through. Many patients need to get five-six tests done on a daily basis and the long queues for each of them can test the patience of anyone.

With the introduction of the smart card system, there will be one-stop payment. Also, the patients who visit the hospital often for repeated tests and diagnosis will benefit from the card as they won’t have to waste time on payments every time.

The patients and their caretakers are quite enthused after the announcement of the service.

“This is a novel idea. With the implementation of this card, which is akin to a debit card, we expect more efficient service and less running around. It certainly would be a big help while attending to patients as we won’t stand in queue to make payments for tests leaving the patient behind,” said Prakash Padhy, an attendant of a patient admitted to AIIMS.

It may be noted that 26 departments have been made active in the AIIMS so far. Overall 4,50,000 patients have been treated in its facilities.