IndiaAI Mission, NHA felicitate winners of AI hackathon to boost claims processing under Ayushman Bharat
New Delhi, May 13
The government on Wednesday felicitated winners of the AB PM-JAY Auto-Adjudication Hackathon Showcase 2026, aimed at developing AI-driven solutions to improve claims adjudication, transparency and fraud detection in public health insurance.
Organised jointly by the IndiaAI Mission, NHA and IISc Bengaluru, the hackathon focused on creating advanced technological solutions to improve the speed, transparency and accuracy of claims adjudication while also strengthening fraud detection mechanisms within the healthcare ecosystem.
Senior officials including Sunil Kumar Barnwal, CEO of the National Health Authority; Abhishek Singh, Director General of the National Testing Agency; Jyoti Yadav, Joint Secretary, NHA; and Shikha Dahiya, Joint Director, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), felicitated the winners during the event.
Officials said the selected solutions have the potential to transform AI-driven adjudication of claims under AB PM-JAY.
The hackathon invited participants to develop solutions around three major problem statements linked to claim processing under the scheme, which handles a large number of claims daily across more than 1,900 treatment packages.
The first problem statement focused on clinical document classification and Standard Treatment Guideline (STG) compliance.
Participants were tasked with developing systems capable of reading mixed-quality healthcare documents, extracting key data, identifying mandatory visual elements and checking compliance with treatment guidelines issued by the NHA.
Vinay Babu Ulli emerged as the winner in this category, while Khushi Singh secured the runner-up position and Vijay Balaji was named the second runner-up.
The second challenge centred on radiological image-based condition detection and report correlation.
Participants developed solutions to validate investigations such as X-rays, CT scans and MRIs submitted as evidence under treatment guidelines and correlate them with medical reports for accurate claims adjudication.
Harish Kumar won the category, followed by Bharath Varma Sangaraju as runner-up and Arnold Sachith as second runner-up.
The third problem statement addressed document forgery and deepfake detection, with innovators building systems capable of detecting forged or synthetically generated documents, including manipulated discharge summaries, altered bills, ghost identities and AI-generated artefacts during claim submission.
Praveen Sridhar won the category, while Nikhileswara Rao Sulake and Sumanth Naidu Mathireddy secured the runner-up and second runner-up positions, respectively.
Winning teams were awarded cash prizes of Rs 5 lakh, Rs 3 lakh and Rs 2 lakh.
— IANS
Reader Comments
Good initiative but I hope these AI models are tested thoroughly on Indian healthcare data. We all know how X-ray reports and discharge summaries look in smaller towns – sometimes handwritten, sometimes scanned at 72 DPI. If the model can't handle those, this will just become another IT project that stalls after the event photos are taken.
As someone who has worked in health insurance, this is a game-changer! 😊 Deepfake detection for medical documents is no joke – I've seen fake bills being submitted from smaller labs. If this AI can flag forged reports instantly, it will save crores of taxpayer money. Kudos to the IndiaAI Mission and NHA for thinking beyond just booking halls and giving certificates.
₹5 lakh prize money for winning solutions? That's decent but I wonder how many of these startups will actually get follow-up contracts. Hackathons are great for visibility but without proper implementation roadmap, this remains a government press conference. Hope MeitY and NHA put some budget for pilot deployment in at least 2-3 districts first.
Interesting to see this from India. In the US we talk about AI in insurance too but privacy concerns always slow things down. I hope the NHA has strong data protection policies in place – patient medical records and X-rays being processed through AI needs strict encryption. But otherwise, great step forward for Ayushman Bharat. 👏
Feeling really proud of the participants from IISc and other colleges! 🇮🇳 Our students can build world-class AI solutions when given the right platform. The document forgery detection problem is particularly relevant – I
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