Private hospitals seek changes to Telangana’s revamped EHS

The Telangana Network Hospitals Association has urged the State government to address what it described as flaws in the revamped Employee Health Scheme. It sought hospital representation in policymaking, realistic treatment package rates, a transparent appeal mechanism and clearance of pending Aarogyasri bills.

Hyderabad: The network of private hospitals in Telangana on Wednesday urged the State government to rectify the inherent flaws in the newly launched Employee Health Scheme (EHS) to ensure it is foolproof.

Telangana Network Hospitals Association (TANHA), representing over 350 small and medium-sized private hospitals, cautioned that the relaunched EHS scheme continued to repeat the same mistakes of the earlier EHS, which eventually led to its failure.

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The association urged the government to make them partners in the re-formulation of the new EHS policy, future implementation committees, and trusts. The TANHA said the State government should set realistic treatment package prices by taking into account actual treatment costs, human resources, medicines, equipment, infrastructure, and other related expenses.

Speaking to media persons, TANHA office bearers, including president Dr Vaddiraju Rakesh, sought a transparent redressal/appeal mechanism to resolve issues of network hospitals and beneficiaries and demanded that Aarogyasri medical bills, pending since 14 to 15 months to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore to Rs 2,500 crores, be cleared.

They said the present and past EHS schemes are riddled with same flaws, as policies were formulated without considering the nature of diseases and treatments and without opinions of network hospitals. “The treatment prices are fixed without proper scientific methods, causing difficulties for both beneficiaries and the hospitals. The decisions taken by Aarogyasri and EHS are unilateral because there is no representation for network hospitals in the Trust”.