CGHS hospitals that have not finished HEM 2.0 come off the panel on 16 September

If your hospital is on the CGHS panel and has not completed the empanelment process under HEM 2.0, you stand de-empanelled with effect from 16 September 2026. An office memorandum of the CGHS headquarters dated 15 August 2026 extended the validity of existing empanelment to 15 September and set that consequence out in terms.

The fifth date, and the second one called final

The same file number has now carried five deadlines. An order of 28 March set 30 April and was reported at the time as the last extension available. Orders followed on 1 July and 16 July, the latter moving the date to 15 August. The 15 August order moved it to 15 September.

Six steps, and you control three of them

The memorandum lists what "completing the process" means: scrutiny of the application, resolution of pending queries, physical verification where required, execution of the Memorandum of Agreement, verification of the Performance Bank Guarantee, and approval of the empanelment on the portal.

Read that list again as an owner. Uploading documents, signing the MoA and furnishing the bank guarantee are yours. Scrutiny, physical verification and portal approval sit with the Additional Director of your CGHS city. The memorandum is addressed to those officers, directing them to finish. So a file can be complete on your side and still be sitting unapproved on 15 September, and the consequence lands on you rather than on the desk holding it.

That is the practical reason to stop treating the extensions as a pattern. Each one has been issued because the administrative side was not finished, not because hospitals asked for more time.

This is re-empanelment, not renewal

What comes out the other side is a fresh term. CGHS Jaipur notified 79 private healthcare organisations on 17 August, each empanelled for three years. The same notification restates a condition worth checking before you sign: a hospital may claim NABH or NABL rates only for those investigations and procedures that are themselves accredited, not because the institution holds a certificate.

One point of confusion is worth clearing. CGHS HEM 2.0 is the Central Government Health Scheme's own empanelment module. The National Health Authority operates a separate system also called HEM 2.0, for hospital engagement under PM-JAY. They are different systems with different requirements, and completing one does nothing for the other.

What this means for your hospital

Establish today which of the six steps is outstanding, and whose desk it is on. If the gap is physical verification or portal approval, telephone the Additional Director's office this week and get the position in writing. Eighteen days is enough time to chase a file and not enough to start one.

Check the Performance Bank Guarantee before anything else. It is the step most often underestimated, because it needs your banker rather than your medical records officer, and bank timelines do not compress.

Do the arithmetic while you are at it. CGHS dues to private hospitals were running six to eighteen months late against a stipulated 30 to 60 days as of August, a delay the government acknowledged in the Rajya Sabha on 13 August. Apply the current rates to your last twelve months of CGHS case mix, subtract your real deduction rate, then apply your actual collection lag. That number, not the referral volume, is what the panel contributes.

If you decide to come off, do it deliberately. Falling off on 16 September because a bank guarantee was late is a different thing from choosing not to renew, and it is harder to reverse: re-entry means a fresh application, not a restoration.