Insights · Accreditation
Madhya Pradesh made NABH a condition of getting paid. 262 hospitals were short.
An order in March gave empanelled private hospitals in four cities three weeks to hold final-level NABH certification or lose Ayushman empanelment. Accreditation takes a year. That is the whole problem.
On 9 March, Madhya Pradesh Ayushman Bharat Niramayam ordered that all empanelled private hospitals in Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur obtain final-level NABH certification by 31 March 2026, or lose empanelment from 1 April.
The arithmetic at the time: 436 private hospitals enrolled across the four cities, of which 174 held NABH certification. That left 262 facing de-empanelment. Statewide, only 290 of 901 empanelled private hospitals held NABH accreditation. Madhya Pradesh has 4.47 crore Ayushman cardholders.
Why three weeks is not a deadline
NABH itself publishes no guaranteed timeline, but nobody working in this field would call a full accreditation runway shorter than several months, and for a hospital starting from a standing position it is realistically closer to a year. The standard requires a minimum period of operation, a minimum period of implementation before you can even apply, and implementation history that cannot be back-dated.
A three-week notice period is therefore not a compliance deadline. It is an announcement that a decision made a year ago has now become expensive.
The objection, and its merit
The MP Nursing Home Association and the IMA's Jabalpur branch opposed the order, arguing that NABH is voluntary under national guidelines and the Clinical Establishments Act. They are right on the law. They are also arguing about the wrong thing — a payer is generally free to set conditions for its own panel, and this payer has 4.47 crore cardholders.
What this signals for hospitals elsewhere
This is the clearest example yet of a state converting accreditation from a marketing badge into a commercial precondition for scheme revenue. The pressure behind it is not really quality — MP accounted for roughly ₹119 crore of flagged fraudulent claims, about a fifth of the national total. Accreditation is being used as a filter.
If your state moves the same way, the decision point is not the deadline. It is roughly a year before the deadline, which means it is now.
The question to actually answer
Not "should we get NABH". That is a question about badges. The question is: what share of our revenue comes from payers who could impose this condition, and what happens to the P&L if that revenue stops in April?
If the answer is a small share, you have time and this is an ordinary quality investment. If it is a large share, accreditation is not a quality project — it is a continuity project, and it belongs on the board agenda rather than the quality coordinator's.
One note of caution on this particular order: we have not been able to confirm whether the 31 March deadline was subsequently extended or whether de-empanelment was actually executed. Confirm the current position with your state health agency before acting on the date.
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