Private healthcare providers in India are above the law, leaving patients without protection

AbstractOver the last year, the dangerous severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread rapidly around the world. Malaysia has not been excluded from this COVID-19 pandemic. The resurgence of COVID-19 cases has overwhelmed the public healthcare system and overloaded the healthcare resources. Ministry of Health (MOH) Malaysia has adopted an Emergency Ordinance (EO) to instruct private hospitals to receive both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients to reduce the strain on public facilities. The treatment of COVID-19 patients at private hospitals could help to boost the bed and critical care occupancy. However, with the absence of insurance coverage because COVID-19 is categorised as pandemic-related diseases, there are some challenges and opportunities posed by the treatment fees management. Another major issue in the collaboration between public and private hospitals is the willingness of private medical consultants to participate in the management of COVID-19 patients, because medical consultants in private hospitals in Malaysia are not hospital employees, but what are termed “private contractors” who provide patient care services to the hospitals. Other collaborative measures with private healthcare providers, e.g. tele-conferencing by private medical clinics to monitor COVID-19 patients and the rollout of national vaccination programme. The public and private healthcare partnership must be enhanced, and continue to find effective ways to collaborate further to combat the pandemic. The MOH, private healthcare sectors and insurance providers need to have a synergistic COVID-19 treatment plans to ensure public as well as insurance policy holders have equal opportunities for COVID-19 screening tests, vaccinations and treatment.

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Improving uptake and use of malaria rapid diagnostic tests in the context of artemisinin drug resistance containment in eastern Myanmar: an evaluation of incentive schemes among informal private healthcare providers

Malaria Journal ◽

10.1186/s12936-015-0621-7 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 105 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Tin Aung ◽

Christopher White ◽

Dominic Montagu ◽

Willi McFarland ◽

Thaung Hlaing ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Drug Resistance ◽

Diagnostic Tests ◽

Healthcare Providers ◽

Rapid Diagnostic Tests ◽

Incentive Schemes ◽

Private Healthcare ◽

Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Tests

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Engagement of private healthcare providers for case finding of tuberculosis and diabetes mellitus in Pakistan

BMC Health Services Research ◽

10.1186/s12913-020-05217-2 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Shifa Salman Habib ◽

Sana Rafiq ◽

Wafa Zehra Jamal ◽

Shaikh Muhammad Ayub ◽

Rashida Abbas Ferrand ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Diabetes Mellitus ◽

Healthcare Providers ◽

Case Finding ◽

Private Healthcare

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Socio-Cultural Sustainability of Private Healthcare Providers in an Indian Slum Setting: A Bottom-of-the-Pyramid Perspective

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su10124702 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (12) ◽

pp. 4702 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Federica Angeli ◽

Shila Teresa Ishwardat ◽

Anand Kumar Jaiswal ◽

Antonio Capaldo

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Business Models ◽

Healthcare Providers ◽

Healthcare Services ◽

Public Hospitals ◽

Decision Making Process ◽

Bottom Of The Pyramid ◽

Social Entrepreneurs ◽

Private Healthcare ◽

Significant Difference

Delivery of affordable healthcare services to communities is a necessary precondition to poverty alleviation. Co-creation approaches to the development of business models in the healthcare industry proved particularly suitable for improving the health-seeking behavior of BOP patients. However, scant research was conducted to understand BOP consumers’ decision-making process leading to specific healthcare choices in slum settings, and the relative balance of socio-cultural and socio-economic factors underpinning patients’ preferences. This article adopts a mixed-method approach to investigate the determinants of BOP patients’ choice between private and public hospitals. Quantitative analysis of a database, composed of 436 patients from five hospitals in Ahmedabad, India, indicates that BOP patients visit a public hospital significantly more than top-of-the-pyramid (TOP) patients. However, no significant difference emerges between BOP and TOP patients for inpatient or outpatient treatments. Qualitative findings based on 21 interviews with BOP consumers from selected slum areas led to the development of a grounded theory model, which highlights the role of aspirational demand of BOP patients toward private healthcare providers. Overall, healthcare provider choice emerges as the outcome of a collective socio-cultural decision-making process, which often assigns preference for private healthcare services because of the higher perceived quality of private providers, while downplaying affordability concerns. Implications for healthcare providers, social entrepreneurs, and policy-makers are discussed.

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Do Professional Practices among Malaysian Private Healthcare Providers Differ? A Comparative Study using Simulated Patients

JOURNAL FOR CLINICAL AND DIAGNOSTIC RESEARCH ◽

10.7860/jcdr/2013/6198.3789 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Mohamed Izham Mohamed Ibrahim

Keyword(s):

Comparative Study ◽

Healthcare Providers ◽

Professional Practices ◽

Simulated Patients ◽

Private Healthcare

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Evaluation of Patient-Oriented Medicines Supply Information on Russian Healthcare Providers’ Websites

Journal of Pharmaceutical Research International ◽

10.9734/jpri/2021/v33i47a33005 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 202-211

Author(s):

Nikita V. Polukhin ◽

Natalia V. Ekkert ◽

Mikhail V. Vodolagin

Keyword(s):

Statistical Significance ◽

Healthcare Providers ◽

Essential Medicines ◽

Simple Random Sample ◽

Legal Requirements ◽

Public And Private ◽

Healthcare Facilities ◽

Private Healthcare ◽

The Difference ◽

Supply Information

Aims: To evaluate the Russian Federation healthcare providers’ websites compliance to legal requirements on availability of patient-oriented medicines supply information and compare the evaluation results between public and private healthcare facilities. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: The evaluation of compliance to legal requirements to medicines supply information on public and private healthcare providers’ websites available on the Internet was conducted in September 2021. Methodology: The study included a simple random sample of 66 websites of Russian healthcare providers containing two groups: public (n=33) and private (n=33) healthcare facilities’ websites. The compliance evaluation was performed by checking the availability of 4 medicines lists on the websites: (1) essential medicines list; (2) list of medicines for the most expensive chronic diseases to treat; (3) list of medicines that are prescribed only by shared decision of healthcare facility medical commission; (4) list of medicines that are dispensed for certain social groups with no charge or with 50% discount in outpatient care settings. Results: The difference of availability of the first list was 90.9% (95% CI 77.7%–97.4%) vs. 33.3% (95% CI 19.2%–50.3%) on public and private healthcare facilities’ website, respectively, P<.001. The difference of that in the second list was 42.4% (95% CI 26.8%–59.3%) vs. 15.2% (95% CI 6.0%–30.1%), P<.028. For the third no statistical significance was revealed (P>.05). For the fourth list the difference was 66.7% (95% CI 49.7%–80.8%) vs. 21.2% (95% CI 10.0%–37.2%), P<.001. Conclusion: It is required to improve the supervision approaches for both public and private healthcare facilities for better patient-oriented medicines supply information provision. The problem may be solved by the implementation of a centralized government policy repository with regularly updated lists, requirements, and best practices.

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South African health plan will prompt more controversy

Emerald Expert Briefings ◽

10.1108/oxan-db245929 ◽

2019 ◽

Keyword(s):

Health Insurance ◽

National Health Insurance ◽

National Health ◽

Healthcare Providers ◽

Healthcare Services ◽

Health Coverage ◽

Access To Health Services ◽

Content Type ◽

Private Healthcare ◽

Health Rights

Subject National Health Insurance (NHI). Significance The long-awaited National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill has been released and is poised to begin its passage through parliament. The Bill contains the biggest health reforms in post-apartheid South Africa and is the first piece of enabling legislation for realising the government’s ambitions for achieving universal health coverage, called NHI. The Bill signals a sharply diminished role for medical schemes, which 8.9 million people use to pre-fund access to private healthcare services. Impacts Given the apartheid-era legacy of inequitable access to health services, opposition to NHI will be cast as being anti-black and anti-poor. With little scope to raise revenue with further tax hikes without undermining compliance, NHI funding will be a perennial problem. Anxiety about the rates government will be willing to offer private healthcare providers could trigger an exodus of doctors and nurses. The NHI Bill rolls back current health rights for migrants, raising the prospects of a future legal challenge.

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PRIME MINISTER'S NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAMME (PMNHP): A COST COMPARISON ANALYSIS

Pakistan Journal of Public Health ◽

10.32413/pjph.v8i1.102 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 37-42

Author(s):

Shaikh Hussain ◽

Rubina Hussain ◽

Assad Hafeez ◽

Adnan Khan

Keyword(s):

Health Insurance ◽

National Health ◽

Healthcare Providers ◽

Caesarian Section ◽

Insurance Companies ◽

Public And Private ◽

Normal Delivery ◽

Private Healthcare ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Health Programme

Background: Prime Minister's National Health Programme (PMNHP) is a publically funded cashless scheme at point of service, which was initiated in December 2015 to provide access to universal healthcare to people living below poverty line for indoor secondary and tertiary healthcare services for priority diseases in Pakistan. Objective: Our study aimed to compare prices of PMNHP districts packages, compare PMNHP with average payments made to healthcare providers by various health insurance companies, and compare prices among PMNHP itself, public sector not supported by the programme, and private healthcare not supported by the programme in Islamabad Methods: We conducted this comparative descriptive cross sectional study. For first two objectives, we collected secondary data, and for the third objective, we did convenient sampling of the treated patient (n-158) from PMNHP, public and private hospitals for selected diseases. Results: PMNHP district comparisons showed no significant difference among districts except Normal Delivery (NVD) at Rahim Yar Khan had lowest cost (mean=10111.11). For Diabetes Mellitus, Muzaffarabad had lowest (mean=1733.33), and Quetta had highest (mean=5300). Average price paid to healthcare providers by various insurance companies are on higher side as compared to PMMHP. Price differences were significant among PMNHP, Public Out of Pocket Spending (OOPS) and Private For NVD, [F(2, 27)=3364, p=0.000] with PMNHP (mean=15.000, SD=0.000) Public (OOPS) (mean=2.127, SD=0.221) and Private (mean=14.702, SD=0.658) For caesarian section [F(2,27)=2850, p=0.000], and Cholecystectomy, [F(2, 28)=221, p=0.000]. While in comparison with Private, PMNHP were cost beneficial for caesarian section (mean=32.016, SD=1.31) and Cholecystectomy (m=43.133, SD=6.648). Conclusion: PMNHP district wise packages are almost same among and for all the districts. Program is fairly and competitively priced against public and private healthcare providers, and private health insurance healthcare provider payments. PMNHP design features may be used to extend program in other districts.

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