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Corporate hospitals have alleged that the show-cause notice issued to them for denying credit facility to CGHS beneficiaries is illegal and unfair. They have accused the Government of violating the memorandum of understanding (MoU), resulting in the stand-off.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had issued the show-cause notices on Thursday to about 25 of the 407 private hospitals across the country, including five in Andhra Pradesh.
“The dues to hospitals from the Government have mounted to ₹600 crore under the scheme for over a year. This includes ₹200 crore to hospitals in Andhra Pradesh,” Bhaskara Rao, President of the Andhra Pradesh Super Specialty Hospitals Association (ASHA) and Chief Executive Officer of KIMS hospital, told Business Line . “The MoU requires the Government to clear the bills within a few weeks of submitting them. But they are delaying them inordinately,” he said.
KIMS is among the five hospitals in Andhra Pradesh that were issued the show-cause notices. The others are Apollo Group of Hospitals, Care Hospitals, Medwin and Yashoda Group Hospitals.
Unilateral move The Ministry said on Friday that these Central Government Heath Scheme empanelled hospitals unilaterally discontinued credit facility to the beneficiaries, adding it would ensure that the empanelled private hospitals continue to extend cashless and credit facilities to the eligible beneficiaries.
The Ministry has suspended empanelment of some of these hospitals for a period of six months or till further orders, which ever is earlier.
“We have been writing to them to clear the dues in the last 10 months. They said they will clear the bills in a week on fast track but wanted to forego 10 per cent as costs. They wanted to clear them hiring a third party agency. Surprisingly, they have begun deducting 10 per cent but never paid us our dues,” Bhaskara Rao alleged.
Hospitals demand hike Meanwhile, the private hospitals are demanding a hike in health packages. “There has been no revision of packages for a while even as the cost of operations has gone up significantly. The Government did call for tenders in this regard but it will not be known till they are finalised,” he said.
The hospitals call for establishment of a team of experts to assess the cost of operations and suggest a suitable mechanism to ascertain the packages.
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