Experts pointed out that the ‘package rates’ under Ayushman Bharat were lower than Arogya Karnataka and ‘only the procedures would be free of cost’
A panel of distinguished healthcare providers and analysts has welcomed the Union government’s ambitious health protection programme, ‘Ayushman Bharat Yojana’ to be rolled out soon, as ‘transformational’, but demanded that the rates provided under the scheme be revised to make it ‘realistic and viable’.
The debate hosted by the National School of Journalism, Bengaluru, threw up a number of suggestions for making the scheme cost-effective for doctors and hospitals as well as providing quality healthcare for the common people.
Dr Alexander Thomas, president, Association of Healthcare Providers of India, said, “If Ayushman Bharat was properly implemented, it would not only take care of the vital health needs of the poor, but it would spare them from spending catastrophically to which they were currently exposed. The costs for various procedures fixed by the government were unscientific and unviable and if they were not adequately revised, the burden would fall on the small and medium hospitals.”
Prof Ranganath, professor of strategy, Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru, said, “There was an urgent need to apply information technology to collect health data across the country and instead of merely focusing on costs, the debate should be about healthcare being ‘value and outcome-based’. Pointing out that Ayushman Bharat only covered primary procedures, he said the scheme would not achieve the desired results unless it also included ‘prevention, recovery and long-term monitoring’ of the patients.”
Dr CN Manjunath, Director of the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, commented, “Karnataka already had a more comprehensive health scheme called ‘Arogya Karnataka’, which covered 1.2 crore BPL families at a cost of INR 1,000 crore per year, whereas Ayushman Bharat had identified 60 lakh BPL families and it had made a provision of only INR 280 crore per year.
Dr Manjunath also pointed out that the ‘package rates’ under Ayushman Bharat were lower than Arogya Karnataka and ‘only the procedures would be free of cost’. He called for inclusion of investigations like CT scan and MRI, without which the quality would suffer. “If the package rates are not sufficient, especially for private hospitals, the treatment would get diluted and the patients would pick up quarrels with hospital authorities,” he warned.
Dr Vijayakumar, vice chancellor of Yenepoya University and former director of Kidwai Cancer Institute, further pointed out the disparity in the rates fixed under Arogya Karnataka and the Ayushman Bharat for various procedures and said if the rates were unscientific it would not be viable for hospitals to take up all cases and ‘they will pick and choose’.
He called for setting up a high-level experts committee to take up rational revision of rates, and in the meantime, for procedures under Ayushman Bharat, one-third each to be contributed by the centre, the state government and corporate sector or well-to-do patients themselves.
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