Jaipur: The Mukhyamantri Chiranjeevi Health Insurance Scheme of the previous Congress government in Rajasthan has proved to be a gold mine for private hospitals of the state. Under the scheme, cashless treatment worth Rs 6186.84 crore has been provided until January this year and about sixty percent of this amount has been received by private hospitals whereas only thirty percent of the patients have reached these hospitals, which means that even after treating less patients, private hospitals made huge gains.
This discrepancy of the scheme has been mentioned in an evaluation report released in May this year. The report recently released by the Evaluation Organization under the Planning Department revealed many flaws and shortcomings of Chirnjeevi Yojana.
“Under the guise of the scheme, private hospitals have shown expenses higher than in government hospitals for both common and serious diseases, which does not seem appropriate. It is suggested that the treatment being provided through private hospitals should be properly monitored by subject-matter experts,” said the report.
The report has also highlighted the alleged malpractice of the private hospitals and said that during the evaluation, it also came to light that to avail the full amount of the package, hospitals were prescribing more medicines than necessary and unnecessary medical tests were also being conducted. At the same time, due to lack of testing facilities in government hospitals, patients were being sent to private labs.
less patient, more benefit
Under the scheme, until January this year, cashless treatment was provided to a total of 42.66 lakh patients in government and private hospitals empaneled under the scheme. Of these, 29.78 lakh patients arrived in government hospitals, while less than half of these 12.88 lakh patients reached to private hospitals.
Whereas the data of payment of claim amount revealed that out of the approved Rs 6186.84 crore, 3708.16 crore were received by private hospitals and Rs 2478.68 crore by government hospitals. That means only thirty percent of the patients were treated by the private hospitals, while sixty percent of the total claim amount was received by them.
The report said that though the number of patients and packages were more in government hospitals, the private hospitals have received huge claims because for chronic diseases, people choose private hospitals instead of government hospitals. As per report, 5.39 lakh patients with chronic diseases were treated in private hospitals and for this they received a claim of Rs 2929.70 crore, which is double the claim received by government hospitals.
New government changes name only
The BJP had criticized the scheme on various grounds being in opposition but now after assuming power has not made any major change other than the name of the scheme. The scheme is now renamed as Mukhyamantri Ayushman Arogya Yojana.
In a recent statement in the legislative assembly, the Health Minister Gajendra Singh Khinvsar said that under the Chiranjeevi Health Insurance Scheme started by the previous government, only one person could get treatment up to Rs 15 lakh.
Addressing the shortcomings of this scheme, the state government has started Mukhyamantri Ayushman Arogya Yojana, which includes 73 day-care packages for serious diseases like cancer. New pediatric packages will also be added to the scheme for the treatment of infants and young children. The rules will be relaxed to increase the empanelment of private hospitals.
