IMA wants healthcare costs on overheads
The healthcare cost cannot be standardized, the IMA chairman Dr AK Ravikumar said, adding that any costing has 2 components - fixed cost and variable cost.
Meanwhile, the Indian medical association (IMA) would be impleading against the Supreme Court order on standardization of rates for Medical procedures.
“The CGHS scheme is for a selective group i.e the Central government employees and their families and the rates derived are not scientific and hospitals empanelled for that are very few and such rates cannot be generalised for all,” he said.
“We would be filing an application for impleadment to the Supreme Court. Besides, various other medical associations too would also be individually impl-eading,” Ravi Kumar added.
An impleadment means applying to Court for permission to join a case in which you are not a party.
He said that patients must choose a hospital as per their affordability. The Indian health care delivery system caters for all the socio-economic groups and institutions vary from a single doctor run hospital to a multi speciality hospital who have State of art world class technology attracting medical tourism.
The IMA in 2018 had submitted a costing template to the government, Irdai, national health authority and General Insurance Council.
The SC in its February 27 order took a stern view at the glaring discrepancy in the expenses of medical procedures and treatments between state-run and private hospitals.
It also found fault with the Union government for its failure to enforce the 12-year-old clinical establishment (central government) rules that empowers it to notify a standard rate of medical procedures and treatments in keeping with the living standards of different regions of the country.
The bench of Justices G.R. Gavai and Sandeep Mehta warned the central government that if it does not present a proposal for hospital rates compliant with the rules in collaboration with states, the court will enforce central government healthscheme (CGHS) rates as an interim measure across all private hospitals.