Pvt. hospitals say no to health scheme

Seek continuation of the re-imbursement programme

Corporate hospitals in the State have made it clear that they will not treat State government employees under the new health scheme and sought the continuation of the old re-imbursement programme.

Members of the high profile Andhra Pradesh Specialty Hospitals Association (ASHA) have expressed their inability to implement the Employees Health (EH) Scheme. Association members who met here on Sunday in a four-page “representation” said that they could not implement the scheme recently launched by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in its present form.

The note listed expectations of the government, challenges and gaps, increase in costs, consequences of implementing the EH schemes and finally the conditions for implementing it.

The association rejected outright free consultation and investigations for out-patients. It also rejected the proposal to treat illnesses on a package basis “in view of the complexities involved in each case”. Packages proposed for medical managements did not exist anywhere. The Standard Schedule of Rates (SSR) proposed for medicines and investigations were even lower than the purchase rates of the hospitals and were therefore not viable.

The Association sought revision of the SSR for investigations, consumables, medicines and professional charges by a “third party”. If the EH scheme was implemented at it was, the private healthcare units would become like the government healthcare units, the release said.

Increase in service tax, VAT, property tax, luxury tax, equipment cost, foreign exchange value, electricity and diesel costs, inflation in general and other overheads like staff salaries and maintenance had pushed up the costs of health care in the last few years. ASHA members appealed to the government to continue the re-imbursement facility to employees and pensioners till the issue was resolved. They also asked the CEO of Arogyasri Trust to postpone the orientation programme that was presently scheduled for November 11 and 12.