PATNA, Feb. 12 -- Barely 26% of Bihar's nearly 51,000 private health facilities have registered under Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), Centre's flagship programme to build a nationwide digital health ecosystem, significantly undermining the goal of creating portable, paperless and consent-based digital health records, officials said. Launched in 2021, the mission aims to connect patients, doctors, hospitals, diagnostic laboratories, pharmacies, blood banks and insurers on a single secure digital platform. In sharp contrast, 99% of the state's 13,120 government health facilities are already registered, according to official data. Officials said the high coverage in the public sector was because Bihar government had made ABDM registration mandatory for government facilities, while it remains optional for private establishments. Given the large gap, discussions are underway within the government to make registration compulsory for the private sector as well. A breakdown of registrations among private facilities shows particularly low participation in physiotherapy (7.5% registration), diagnostic centres (pathology/radiology/imaging) 11.4%, blood banks: 26.3%, pharmacies: 48.6% and non-empanelled private hospitals and clinics 50.6%, as per state government data. Overall, Bihar has 29,879 public and private health facilities registered under ABDM, placing the state fifth nationally in this category. Of these, 795 are private hospitals empanelled under the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY). About 11,000 of the state's 22,000 private pharmacies are also onboarded. Officials attributed the low participation largely to apprehensions over transparency. They said once a facility registers, the entire patient journey - outpatient visits, admissions, surgeries, prescriptions and discharge - is captured digitally in government database. This, they indicated, could reveal operational volumes and income patterns that may be scrutinised for taxation purposes....