What is the issue?
- NITI Aayog proposed a model contract to increase the role of private hospitals in treating non-communicable diseases.
- This proposal has implementation challenges.
What are the proposals of NITI Aayog?
- The proposed model consists of leasing out a portion of the hospital for 30 years to a private company to provide treatment.
- The treatment coverage is for the three diseases cardiology, cancer and pulmonology.
- Complicated cases will be referred to bigger hospitals of their own or of government.
- Government reimbursements for patients referred to them will be on par with rates paid under the government sponsored insurance scheme.
- The private entity will have its own staff and personnel, laboratories, pharmacy, ambulances and common services.
What is the need for such model?
- The three diseases mentioned earlier account for 35% of total mortality in the country.
- 3/4th of the specialists, equipment and beds are in the private sector.
- So the partnership with private sector is inevitable.
What are the challenges in implementation?
- Salary scale, working methods, prescription practices, monitoring and accountability systems are all different in public and private models.
- No clarity has been given on the coexistence of public and private managements on the same physical space.
- In the government bears all risks and the private partner goes away with all the profits.
- The accountability of private partner is limited to just of submitting some annual reports to the government.
- The model does not provide any information on the pricing strategy and its impact on public budgets.
Source: Indian Express
