ABDM Scan and Share: how OPD token registration works

Scan and Share is the part of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission that most patients will meet first. It replaces the paper form and the long OPD registration queue with a QR code on the counter. For a healthtech founder or PM, it is also the cheapest way to get a real ABHA integration live inside a hospital. This page explains the patient flow, what a hospital must have, what your HMIS must build, and where the incentive money comes from. Figures are as of 1 November 2026 unless a date is given.

1. What Scan and Share is

The National Health Authority launched Scan and Share in 2022 under ABDM. A patient scans a QR code at a participating facility with a phone camera or an ABDM-enabled app. The app asks for consent, shares the patient's demographic details from the Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA), and the hospital's information system returns a digital queue token.

The ABDM playbook says the idea came from UPI: a QR code at the point of need, scanned by the customer's own phone. The data passed to the hospital is the patient's name, age, gender and ABHA number. An ABHA is a 14-digit number that a person creates voluntarily, and it works as the common identifier across facilities.

The PIB backgrounder of July 2026 cites an IIHMR study that found Scan and Share cut waiting time from about an hour to 2 to 5 minutes. It also reports over 23.21 crore ABHA-linked tokens issued across the country as of 18 June 2026.

2. The patient flow, step by step

The ABDM playbook describes the smartphone journey like this:

1. The patient walks in and sees the facility's QR code at the registration counter and around the premises.
2. They scan it with the phone camera or a third-party scanner and choose a PHR app. If they have none, they see a list of compliant apps and can create an ABHA there.
3. The app opens a share-profile page. When the patient gives consent and taps share, the express registration is complete.
4. The hospital's HMIS generates a token, which appears in the same PHR app.
5. The token shows on the counter's display screen. At the counter the clerk asks a few questions and issues the OPD slip.

The playbook puts the average token validity at 30 mins and the wait at 4-5 mins. If a patient misses their number, they can still go to the counter and get a registration slip, so the digital path never blocks the paper one.

Patients without a smartphone. The playbook describes a "scan and pull" route. The clerk scans the QR on the patient's printed ABHA card and pulls the details into the HMIS. A patient with no ABHA card is sent to an ABHA counter at the hospital, where one is created by biometric or face authentication.

3. What a hospital needs before it starts

The playbook lists the physical and software requirements. None is exotic, but a hospital that skips one will see the scheme fail at the counter, not in the app:

• An ABDM-enabled HMIS, preferably web-based with data in the cloud.
• One or two dedicated counters to start, or the option for any counter to take a token number and retrieve the details.
• Display screens that show the tokens being served, plus a queue display system to feed them.
• QR code stands in the registration area and a facilitation desk that helps people create ABHA.
• Good internet, preferably fibre, with a reliable power supply. The pilot showed this is a condition for starting at all.

The hospital must also register itself in the Health Facility Registry and register its professionals in the Healthcare Professionals Registry. If you sell to hospitals, make that a line in your onboarding checklist, not a surprise in week three. See also our ABHA integration guide.

4. What your HMIS must build

For a software vendor, these are the requirements the playbook sets for the HMIS:

• Integration across the three ABDM milestones.
• A cloud-based deployment.
• A dynamic queue system for online and offline patients, with real-time capture of shared profile details.
• Skip-queue handling, including missed tokens.
• Linking of the existing UHID to ABHA for follow-up patients, and auto-assignment of a new UHID, linked to ABHA, for new patients.
• A configurable token expiry in the API, so a patient cannot scan again and again after a token is issued.
• A unique, in-sequence token number for each patient.
• A check that scans happen only during the facility's OPD timings.

Two of these are easy to forget. Token expiry and the OPD-hours check both need settings that registration staff can read and change. The playbook adds that the second stage of Scan and Share, sharing health records with the professional through PHR apps, was still being built when it was written, so keep your data model open for it.

5. Where the money is: the incentive scheme

Under the Digital Health Incentive Scheme, hospitals and digital solution companies earn cash incentives for creating interoperable digital health records, and facilities are reimbursed for digitisation costs. The PIB backgrounder reports the amounts paid as on 18 June 2026:

I could not open ABDM's own incentive policy today, so I am not stating per-transaction rates or caps. Read the current scheme on the ABDM site before you put a number in a sales deck.

6. What a state rollout teaches

Uttar Pradesh's ABDM unit published its own best-practice note. It reports 2.27+ crore OPD tokens through Scan and Share, and growth from 1 facility to 792 public health facilities. Its main steps were QR codes at OPD entry points, fast-track counters for ABHA patients, ABHA creation by ASHA workers, and constant staff training. Its note lists change resistance from hospital staff as a challenge and answers it with regular workshops and on-ground demos.

The lesson for a product team is plain. The app is the easy part. A vendor that ships training, a one-page counter guide and a support line is likely to get more tokens than one that ships only an API.

What I could not confirm

I found conflicting, undated facility counts for Scan and Share, so this page gives none. The playbook is dated January 2023, so ask ABDM whether the requirements have since changed before you build to them.

Questions people ask

What is ABDM Scan and Share?

It is an NHA service, launched in 2022, that lets a patient scan a facility's QR code, share their ABHA profile and receive an OPD token without filling a paper form.

Does a patient need a smartphone?

No. The playbook describes a route where the clerk scans the QR on the patient's printed ABHA card, and a counter can create an ABHA by biometric or face authentication.

What must a hospital have to offer it?

An ABDM-enabled HMIS, counters and displays for tokens, QR stands, reliable internet and power, a facility entry in the Health Facility Registry, and its professionals in the Healthcare Professionals Registry.

Do hospitals or software vendors get paid for joining?

The PIB backgrounder says hospitals and digital solution companies earn cash incentives under the Digital Health Incentive Scheme. Check the current rates with ABDM.

Sources

1. Scan and Share Playbook, ABDM, 18 January 2023
2. Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission: India's Digital Health Backbone, PIB, 6 July 2026
3. Best practices of ABDM-UP on Scan and Share and HMIS implementation, NITI for States, 2025