ECHS hospitals have until 30 September to sign the revised agreement, or be deemed de-panelled

If your hospital is empanelled with the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme, you have until 30 September 2026 to execute the revised Memorandum of Agreement. An order of the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare dated 27 July 2026 set that date, partially modifying its own earlier orders of 5 December 2025, 13 March 2026 and 30 April 2026.

That is four deadlines in nine months. The repeated extensions are worth reading as what they are: hospitals have been reluctant to sign.

What is actually underneath it

The revised MoA adopts the revised CGHS package rates notified by the health ministry on 3 October 2025, which the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare extended to ECHS on 5 December 2025 with effect from 15 December 2025.

That rate structure differentiates in four ways that matter commercially. Accredited hospitals are paid more, with non-accredited facilities at roughly 15 per cent lower. Super-specialty status carries an uplift. Tier II and III cities are paid 10 to 20 per cent below metro rates. And rates vary by the beneficiary's ward entitlement.

If you have been treating NABH or NABL accreditation as a marketing question, this is the second scheme in a year to price it directly, alongside PM-JAY's accreditation-linked package premium.

Fresh empanelment is opening too

The same July order directs the ECHS Central Organisation to ensure the portal opens for fresh empanelment before 30 September. If you are not currently on the panel and want to be, that window is now.

The part that should give you pause

None of this addresses the reason hospitals hesitated in the first place. On the CGHS side, whose rates ECHS has adopted, private hospitals reported in August 2026 that dues were running six to eighteen months late against a stipulated 30 to 60 days, alongside unexplained claim rejections. The government acknowledged the delay problem in a statement to the Rajya Sabha on 13 August 2026.

A separate correction is worth knowing about if you bill either scheme. An office memorandum of 24 March 2026 corrected two codes from the October 2025 rate revision, applied from the original date: MRI spine imaging was clarified as "without contrast", and the OPD super-specialist consultation code was redefined to require a DM, MCh or DNB super-specialty qualification. Claims already filed on the earlier reading need re-mapping.

What this means for your hospital

Treat 30 September as a real date, not a fifth extension waiting to happen. There may well be another one, but planning on it is not a strategy, and de-panelling is automatic rather than discretionary.

Before you sign, do the arithmetic you probably have not done. Take your last twelve months of ECHS and CGHS billing. Apply the revised rates to that case mix. Subtract your actual deduction rate. Then apply your real collection lag, not the stipulated one. What is left is what the panel contributes, and it is the only number that should decide whether you sign.

If the answer is that you want to stay, and most hospitals with a service population will, then check two things at the same time: that your accreditation status is current on the portal, because it now changes what you are paid, and that whoever handles your super-specialist OPD billing has seen the March correction.