NITI Aayog member says national health scheme will aim to keep cheaters out
Mumbai: To curb illegal mass surgeries, policy makers working on the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) are planning to restrict surgical procedures like hysterectomies and appendectomies to public sector hospitals. Dr Vinod Paul, member, NITI Aayog, said on Saturday that such procedures could also be dropped from the scheme. “Procedures like these can be misused. We have had such instances in some States, so we are being mindful of not repeating mistakes.”
At an interactive meeting with stakeholders, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), at Welingkar Institute in Matunga, he said, “This is just one of the several measures being discussed to ensure the scheme doesn’t leave scope for undue treatment. There are a thousand ways to cheat, like falsifying or tampering with records, fake patients. We want to ensure that we don’t let this happen. As many as 24 States with active insurance have implemented methodologies to avoid such frauds. We are looking at their methods.”
Dr. Paul said the public’s trust quotient has plummeted due some incidents, and urged stakeholders to adopt self-regulation as a new start.
High volume, low returns
The NHPS is intended to cover more than 10 crore poor families by providing ?5 lakh per year for each family. Nearly 1,300 packages and a similar number of diseases will be covered under the scheme, which is in the final stages of design. Given that 24 States including Maharashtra have their own insurance schemes, Dr. Paul said the NHPS will work in alliance with existing schemes.
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