The Online Referral System in the state health insurance scheme of Karnataka, India: a digital tool to contribute to strategic purchasing

Overview

This case study focuses on the Indian state of Karnataka and a particular digital technology, the “Online Referral System” (ORS), which came into use in 2022 to support the referral system. This digital tool seeks to overcome the limitations of the previous manual referral process and aims to optimize the patient referral function for health services covered by the state health insurance scheme, the Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana Chief Minister’s Arogya Karnataka (AB PM-JAY CM’s ArK). This paper examines how the use of this digital technology, the ORS, supports health financing tasks and how this would ultimately contribute to progress in the UHC objectives.