Chief Minister's Health Insurance Scheme (CMHIS), Nagaland

What is the Chief Minister's Health Insurance Scheme in Nagaland?

Chief Minister's Health Insurance Scheme (CMHIS) is the Government of Nagaland's own public health insurance scheme, run by the Health & Family Welfare Department and implemented on the ground by the Nagaland Health Protection Society (NHPS) in Kohima. CMHIS pays for hospital treatment on a cashless basis at empanelled hospitals, so an eligible family does not have to find the money first and claim it back later.

According to the CMHIS portal, the scheme exists to close the gap left by Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY). PM-JAY covers deprivation-based households identified centrally; a large share of Nagaland's population; state government employees, pensioners, and ordinary indigenous inhabitants who were never on the PM-JAY list: fell outside it. CMHIS was created to cover exactly those households, and the two schemes are run in convergence by the same society so that a family is enrolled in one or the other rather than both.

CMHIS runs in two distinct streams:

• CMHIS (EP). The Employees and Pensioners stream, covering Rs 20 lakh per family per year.
• CMHIS (General), often written CMHIS (GEN) or CMHIS (GC). The general category stream, covering Rs 5 lakh per family per year.

Both figures are annual family floater limits, meaning the whole registered household draws from the same pot within a policy year rather than each member getting a separate limit.

The scale is not small for a state of Nagaland's size. The CMHIS portal reports 1,66,567 cards issued to government employees, 44,715 to pensioners and 24,667 in the general category, alongside 5,71,981 AB PM-JAY cards, and records Rs 27.12 crore utilised in financial year 2026-27.

Who is eligible for CMHIS Nagaland?

You can register under CMHIS (EP) if you are:

• A serving employee of the Government of Nagaland, identified by your PIMS code.
• A pensioner of the Government of Nagaland, identified by your PPO.
• A dependent family member of either. The CMHIS portal defines the EP family to include the spouse; unmarried sons up to age 25 or earning under Rs 9,000 a month; unmarried, unemployed daughters with no age limit; dependent parents and parents-in-law; stepchildren and legally adopted children; and dependent siblings.

You can register under CMHIS (General) if you are:

• An indigenous inhabitant of Nagaland or a permanent resident of the state who is not an AB PM-JAY beneficiary.
• A contractual employee of the state government.
• An accredited journalist.

For the general category the unit is the household. The portal defines a household as the people living together and sharing a common kitchen; institutional groups such as orphanages are registered as a single unit.

You are not eligible, or cannot apply, if:

• You are already covered by an active AB PM-JAY card, the general category is expressly for those PM-JAY does not cover.
• You are neither an indigenous inhabitant nor a permanent resident of Nagaland and have no employment or pension link to the state government.
• You are a family member who does not meet the dependency definition above, for example, an independently earning adult son over 25.

Ward entitlement also differs between the streams. Under CMHIS (EP), access to a private, semi-private or general ward is graded by the employee's pay level. Under CMHIS (General), the entitlement is a general ward.

What does CMHIS cover?

CMHIS covers inpatient hospitalisation at empanelled hospitals along with a defined set of daycare procedures. The portal specifically names dialysis, surgeries and chemotherapy among the treatments covered, and cover extends to empanelled hospitals across India, not only inside Nagaland — an important point for Naga patients referred to Guwahati, Kolkata, Vellore or Delhi.

Treatment packages are standardised. The Health Benefits Packages list published in the Hospitals section of the portal defines what each procedure pays, and an empanelled hospital cannot charge the beneficiary over and above the package rate for a covered treatment.

Where a genuine emergency forces admission to a hospital that is not empanelled, CMHIS provides an emergency medical reimbursement route rather than leaving the family without recourse. The claim form and the documents required are published under the Claims Reimbursement menu.

What documents are required for CMHIS?

If Aadhaar authentication fails at the counter, the portal publishes an Aadhaar Failure Declaration Form which the registration centre can use instead of turning the applicant away.

How to apply for a CMHIS card

1. Open the official portal at cmhis.nagaland.gov.in and select Register from the top menu, or go directly to a listed registration centre, the portal lists PHCs, CHCs, treasury offices and empanelled private hospitals as registration points.
2. Choose the correct stream: CMHIS (EP) if you are a serving state government employee or pensioner, CMHIS (General) if you are an indigenous inhabitant or permanent resident outside PM-JAY.
3. Create the household record. Enter the head of the household first, then add each dependent family member with their Aadhaar details and relationship. The Beneficiary Corner carries a separate "New Household Registration" guide for this step.
4. Complete Aadhaar e-KYC for each member. Use the Aadhaar Failure Declaration Form if biometric or OTP authentication does not go through.
5. Submit the supporting documents; PIMS code for employees, PPO for pensioners, indigenous inhabitant or permanent residence certificate for the general category, and dependency proofs for family members.
6. Wait for household verification. The department verifies the household and assigns the beneficiary identifier once the record is approved.
7. Generate and download your card from the portal once approval is complete. The Beneficiary Corner has a dedicated card generation guide.

How to use CMHIS at a hospital

1. Go to an empanelled hospital: check the downloadable empanelled hospital list on the portal first, since the list covers hospitals outside Nagaland too.
2. Report to the hospital's Ayushman Mitra / health mitra desk with your CMHIS card and Aadhaar.
3. The hospital verifies your identity and raises a pre-authorisation request against the applicable health benefits package.
4. Treatment proceeds cashless on approval. You should not be asked to pay for anything inside the approved package.

A December 2025 circular on the portal, "Guidelines on Usage of Beneficiary Cards Generated Post-Hospitalisation under PM-JAY CMHIS", governs the case where a card is generated only after admission has already happened: worth reading if a family member was hospitalised before the household was registered.

Why CMHIS registrations and claims get rejected

• Aadhaar e-KYC failure for one or more family members, leaving the household record incomplete.
• Duplicate enrolment, attempting a CMHIS (General) registration when the household already holds an active PM-JAY card.
• Dependency not established, for example an adult son over 25 or an earning child added to an EP household without qualifying proof.
• Wrong stream chosen, such as a contractual employee registering under EP instead of the General category.
• Treatment at a non-empanelled hospital claimed as a cashless case rather than routed through the emergency medical reimbursement process.
• Mobile number not working, so OTP verification and card delivery both fail.

Most of these are fixable at the registration centre. Take the original of the document in question rather than a photocopy.

Help and grievance redressal for CMHIS

• Toll-free helpline: 1800 202 3380
• Email: support-nhps@cmhis.nagaland.gov.in
• Office: Nagaland Health Protection Society, 4th Floor, Drug Control Building, Kohima
• Indus Health Mitra: the portal publishes an FAQ document dated 16 December 2025 on the Health Mitra service that supports beneficiaries at hospital desks.
• RTI: the portal carries a dedicated RTI page for formal information requests.

Registration under CMHIS is free. No agent can charge a fee to add your name to the beneficiary list, and no empanelled hospital may demand cash for a treatment that falls inside an approved health benefits package.

How to check your CMHIS application status

CMHIS does not publish a separate tracking number the way a subsidy scheme might; status here means whether your household record has cleared verification and whether your card has been generated. There are three ways to check.

1. Log in to the portal. Go to cmhis.nagaland.gov.in and sign in to the Beneficiary Corner with the mobile number used at registration. Once the household record moves from submitted to verified, the portal shows the beneficiary identifier for each member, and the card generation option becomes active on the same screen. If the login still shows the record as pending, verification has not been completed yet, there is nothing further for you to submit unless the centre has separately asked you for a correction.
2. Call the toll-free helpline. Ring 1800 202 3380 with the mobile number or PIMS code, PPO number, or the reference given at the registration centre. The helpline can tell you whether the household is still under verification, has been approved, or has been sent back for a document correction.
3. Go back to the registration centre in person. Since CMHIS registration happens at a PHC, CHC, treasury office, or empanelled hospital rather than a central office, the centre that took your form can usually tell you directly why a record is stuck, most often a failed Aadhaar e-KYC on one member or a missing document, and correct it on the spot instead of you waiting for it to resolve on its own.

If your card was generated after a hospital admission had already started, check the December 2025 circular on post-hospitalisation card generation noted above; it sets out how that sequence is treated rather than being an error you need to get fixed. For a stalled claim rather than a stalled registration, chase it through the empanelled hospital's Ayushman Mitra desk first, since pre-authorisation status sits with the hospital and the Nagaland Health Protection Society, not on the beneficiary login.