The Digital Health Incentive Scheme: how hospitals, labs and software earn from ABDM

01What the scheme is

The Digital Health Incentive Scheme, DHIS, was announced by the National Health Authority in 2023 to encourage hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies and health-technology companies to adopt ABDM. Instead of subsidising software, it pays for outcomes: every health record linked to a patient’s ABHA and made available through ABDM is a transaction, and transactions above a base level earn a fixed amount each.

The scheme is run under NHA’s operational guidelines and amended by corrigenda. Because the amendments change rates, windows and rules, this guide gives the figures from the corrigendum of 20 November 2025 and says where to check for the current ones.

02Who can claim

• Health facilities registered in the Health Facility Registry: hospitals, clinics, diagnostic laboratories and pharmacies.
• Digital solution companies whose software creates the transactions: HMIS and EMR vendors, laboratory systems, health lockers and teleconsultation providers.

Both sides earn from the same transactions. A hospital using a vendor’s certified software earns as a facility; the vendor earns as a digital solution company. The facility has to be linked to the software in HFR for its transactions to be attributed, which is the “software linkage” step covered in the HFR registration guide.

03What counts as a transaction

A transaction is a health record linked to an ABHA through ABDM: an OPD consultation record, a discharge summary, a prescription, a laboratory report or an immunisation record, linked as a care context so that the patient can see it in their PHR app and share it. Creating an ABHA on its own is not a transaction; the record linked to it is.

The counting rules matter. At most one transaction a day and five a month per ABHA are eligible for a given facility or company. The scheme rewards a hospital that links every patient’s visit, not one that links ten records for the same patient.

04Rates, limits and caps

As set out in the corrigendum of 20 November 2025:

• Hospitals and clinics: ₹20 per eligible transaction above the base level.
• Laboratories: ₹15 per eligible transaction above the base level.
• At most one transaction a day and five a month per ABHA, per facility or company.
• A ceiling of ₹4 crore per registered facility or digital solution company.
• The earlier rule that withheld payment until ₹2,500 had accumulated no longer applies.
• Incentives payable for the window from November 2025, subject to the availability of funds.

The base level is the number of transactions a facility must exceed before the incentive starts, set in the guidelines by facility size. Read it for your category before doing the arithmetic.

05How it has changed

The scheme opened in January 2023 and was first extended in mid-2023, when NHA also widened it to more categories of provider. Since then it has been extended in windows of a few months at a time, with rates and rules adjusted by corrigenda. That pattern is the point to take from its history: the incentive is dependable enough to plan around in the short term and should be reconfirmed each quarter.

06How to claim

1. Register the facility in HFR and link it to the certified software it uses.
2. Use the software as intended: create or verify the patient’s ABHA at registration and link each visit’s record as a care context.
3. NHA counts the transactions from what reaches ABDM; the facility does not submit a claim per record.
4. Complete the scheme’s registration and bank details on NHA’s portal so that the amounts can be paid.
5. Reconcile monthly: the facility’s own count of linked records against what NHA reports, so a linkage that silently failed is noticed.

07The arithmetic for a hospital

Take a hospital that sees 3,000 OPD patients a month and links a visit for each. If the base level for its category is 500 transactions, 2,500 are eligible at ₹20: ₹50,000 a month, or ₹6 lakh a year, subject to the scheme’s window and funds.

Against that, the ABDM integration costs what you chose to pay for it. On the Swastik connector the same hospital pays ₹2,999 a month on Growth. One hundred and fifty eligible transactions cover it; the rest is the hospital’s. The comparison page sets the routes side by side.

08What your software has to do

• Create or verify the ABHA at the counter, and store it against the patient record.
• Link every visit as a care context, HIP-initiated where the patient is present and by SMS invitation otherwise.
• Compose the record as a FHIR bundle so that it can be shared when consent is granted; a care context with no shareable record is worth less.
• Keep the HFR linkage and the bridge registration correct, or the transactions are attributed to nobody.
• Show the desk what is linked and what failed, so the count is real by month end.

All of this is the M1 and M2 work described in the milestones guide, and it is what the connector does on behalf of the software calling it.