Private hospitals have written to the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman seeking her help to get the pending dues from government cleared. The government has failed to sanction payments of ₹1,400 crore to private hospitals for providing free treatment under central health schemes.
Following this, the hospitals have made several attempts to recover their dues from the ministry of health and family welfare, the nodal ministry for implementing schemes such as the central government health scheme (CGHS) and ex-servicemen contributory health scheme (ECHS) but in vain. The Association of Healthcare Providers of India (AHPI), which represents corporate healthcare providers, has now written to Sitharaman for a resolution so that the dues are paid to the hospitals at the earliest.
According to the list submitted to Sitharaman, Max Healthcare has outstanding dues of ₹147.77 crore under CGHS and ₹75 crore under ECHS. CGHS facilities are extended to central government employees and pensioners, sitting and former members of Parliament, former governors and lieutenant governors, freedom fighters, sitting and former judges of the Supreme Court and high courts, and certain public sector units. The beneficiaries would receive cashless healthcare from empanelled private hospitals. These private hospitals are supposed to get reimbursement from the government.
Max alleged that the CGHS has never been able to meet its commitment on timely payments to the hospital chain and has outstanding dues of more than ₹150 crore as on 31 July 2019. Fortis Healthcare has outstanding dues of ₹59.74 crore under CGHS and ₹150.5 crore under ECHS.
“Due to such huge delays and outstanding payments, private hospitals, like us, face financial difficulties in meeting their obligations to suppliers and third-party,” said a Max spokesperson. “The hospital’s cash-flow is seriously impacted because of the continuous and perennial delay in CGHS payments. Nevertheless, the hospitals continue to treat CGHS patients and take care to minimize any inconvenience to them,” he added.
“A large outstanding has piled up, which has affected the business performance and financial health of the company. In turn, it also affects third-party vendors who have to face financial duress due to delay in payments. It would be helpful if this process is simplified with a timely clearance of the dues by the government,” said a Fortis spokesperson.
Also, Apollo Hospitals has an outstanding of ₹69 crore under CGHS and ₹71 crore under ECHS, and Medanta Medicity, Delhi-NCR, has an outstanding ₹57 crore under CGHS and ₹38 crore under ECHS.
Apollo officials also alleged that the dues are pending with the government for a long time, even the hospital is no more empanelled with CGHS for the last five years.
“Reimbursement is a major concern. Hospitals signed agreements based on the terms defined by the CGHS, effective 1 October 2014, which has provision to make 70% payment within five working days of submission of bills by hospitals,” said an AHPI official.
But the health ministry says the dues will be cleared soon. “As our department had a budget crunch, the payments of private hospitals under CGHS are pending. As per the vote of account, we can only use one-third of the budget before July. Soon, we will start clearing the bills,” said Atul Prakash, director, CGHS.
Most private hospitals also claimed that they have been serving patients under CGHS at heavily discounted prices, which have not been revised since 2014.

Source: Livemint

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