The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), in collaboration with the National Health Authority (NHA), IndiaAI Mission and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, on Friday inaugurated the AB PM-JAY Auto-Adjudication Hackathon Showcase 2026, a two-day national event aimed at strengthening healthcare claims management under Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) through Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The event brought together policymakers, technology innovators, insurers, third-party administrators, healthcare providers, academia and AI startups to showcase cutting-edge AI solutions designed to improve transparency, efficiency and integrity in claims adjudication.
Addressing the inaugural session, National Health Authority CEO Dr. Sunil Kumar Barnwal said the initiative presents a major opportunity to enhance healthcare delivery and improve the overall efficiency of India’s healthcare ecosystem through technology-driven innovation.
He noted that India is among the first countries in the Global South to develop a Health AI benchmarking platform. Referring to the BODH platform developed at IIT Kanpur, Dr. Barnwal said it serves as an open benchmarking and data platform for validating AI solutions against India-specific datasets as a digital public good.
Highlighting the importance of robust claims management, Dr. Barnwal said transparent and efficient adjudication is essential for building trust among empanelled hospitals, ensuring timely settlements and maintaining programme integrity under AB PM-JAY.
A key highlight of the event was the demonstration of AI and machine learning-based solutions developed under the hackathon to address critical challenges in claims adjudication.
Under the first problem statement on clinical document classification and compliance with Standard Treatment Guidelines (STGs), participating teams showcased AI systems capable of automatically classifying healthcare documents and extracting structured clinical and billing data using multilingual Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The solutions also identified mandatory markers such as hospital stamps and authorised signatures while generating explainable adjudication outputs aligned with treatment guidelines and policy frameworks.
The second challenge focused on radiological image-based condition detection and report correlation. Teams presented AI-assisted tools capable of analysing X-rays, CT scans and MRIs to help adjudicators validate diagnoses, disease staging and treatment timelines submitted by hospitals, thereby improving accuracy and speeding up claims processing.
The third problem statement dealt with document forgery and deepfake detection. Participants showcased AI-driven systems capable of detecting manipulated discharge summaries, altered billing records, ghost beneficiaries and synthetically generated medical reports. Officials said such technologies could significantly strengthen digital claims adjudication and protect programme integrity.
The event also featured a high-level panel discussion on “Building AI for Indian Healthcare”, chaired by Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, S. Krishnan. Experts from government, academia and the healthcare technology sector discussed the role of Small Language Models (SLMs), Large Language Models (LLMs) and multimodal AI systems in addressing healthcare challenges, especially in low-resource and multilingual settings.
The discussions also highlighted the importance of workflow integration, validation frameworks, quality datasets, privacy safeguards and scalable deployment of AI solutions in healthcare.
Senior officials including Joint Secretary (PMJAY) Jyoti Yadav, IISc Bengaluru Director Prof. Govindan Rangarajan, healthcare professionals, innovators and students attended the event.
The National Health Authority said the hackathon aims to develop scalable digital solutions that can seamlessly integrate with existing AB PM-JAY infrastructure, reduce manual intervention and create a future-ready adjudication framework for healthcare claims management across the country.
