Good health policies of a country have a significant impact on its economy through the creation of good health conditions of the population. The latest Economic Survey states that India ranks 179th out of 189 countries that prioritize healthcare in their government budgets. The Government of India is committed to increase public spending from the current 1.35% of GDP to 2.5% in the near future. Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) is one such initiative to achieve this goal. This can prove to be a game changer in India. As mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi “It is a holistic solution for a healthy India”. It seeks to provide free access to medical services to about 40 per cent of the population, covering about 50 crore people with free primary, secondary and tertiary level medical care by providing health insurance of Rs 5 lakh per family per year. has gone. The current budget has more allocation for Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission through creation of a national digital health ecosystem.
The latest figures on the Ayushman Bharat portal show that so far 17.35 crore people have received Ayushman Bharat cards and 2.61 crore people have availed hospitalization facilities. This is only a humble beginning. We need to see how effectively we can reach vulnerable populations to make it more effective. It can be argued that the effectiveness of the Ayushman Bharat program depends on overcoming many other challenges apart from increasing the budget allocation. It needs to be seen how the interests of various stakeholders are linked together. Let’s look at some of them.
The central and state governments are some of the major stakeholders. It is important to note that although Ayushman Bharat has been launched by the Central Government, the responsibility of its implementation lies with the State Governments. Many state governments like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, etc. have already started their flagship health programmes. States can either join this program by incorporating their existing schemes or run their own health programmes. Many state governments are still skeptical about joining hands with the central governments for fear of losing autonomy.
The role of public health service in providing primary health care is very important to create nexus between primary and secondary health care. Inadequate availability of public health infrastructure in terms of number of primary health centres, sub-centres and other infrastructure has been a chronic problem in our country since independence. Although the program has an ambitious plan to replace the existing centers with 1,50,000 health and wellness centers (HWCs), it is difficult to implement on the ground. This means that the success of the program depends on the voluntary participation of the private healthcare sector, especially private hospitals. The program can benefit private hospitals in increasing the demand for and operating a number of specialty or highly specialized treatments. Around 23,000 private hospitals have been empaneled in this scheme. They are facing many challenges such as low fixed rates per surgery, prevalence of fraud cases and complicated reimbursement process.
The private health insurance sector serves as a major pillar of the programme. State governments seek competitive bidding from insurance companies for access to health insurance to the general public. This can help insurers to expand faster and reduce their average cost of customer acquisition. At the same time, they can take the high risk of reducing premium charges to low levels where they may become unviable.
It is expected that firms dealing in pharmaceuticals, diagnostics medical devices and digital healthcare will act as a support system for the entire health eco-system. Medtech companies using technologies such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence, wireless sensors, 3D printing, digital healthcare can be used to collate and analyze data, reducing costs and effectively getting to the bottom of the pyramid section. Is.
In short we can say that the success of this program depends on the development of skilled manpower. Health workers require technical and managerial skills as well as additional skills such as empathy, trustworthiness and communication skills. It is difficult to develop them in the short term. India needs good quality health education institutions to develop such skills. With the successful implementation of this program, India will not only move ahead on the global front in terms of improving health conditions but will also create a strong foundation for future economic growth. The key to successful implementation depends on i) creating a mechanism to see that all stakeholders are getting benefits, ii) bringing coordination among various stakeholders, and iii) creating a vigilant monitoring system to control quality .
Disclaimer: Healthcare student, MBA, Content created by KJ Somaiya Institute of Management
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