All the mortalities and fatalities occurring in the network hospitals and cases treated under the Aarogyasri health insurance scheme of the government will be studied once again by a third party panel of specialised medical professionals.
The third party check will be in addition to the cases vetted by the Aarogyasri Healthcare Trust’s own panel of senior doctors as part of a comprehensive medical audit started by the Trust, according to Chief Executive Officer M. Chandrasekhar. “We have formed a team of 13 highly qualified doctors to go through the case files of the mortalities and fatalities so as to remove any iota of doubt or dispute thereafter. They are all very experienced in their respective fields and will remain anonymous for obvious reasons,” he said.
The process is expected to help the Trust to have a proper case management in case of deaths because “we have been facing several charges and accusations. Even if one person dies while undergoing treatment it could turn into a matter of dispute,” he avers.
The CEO is of the opinion that since it has been a decade since the Aarogyasri Trust has come into vogue providing free treatment to the poor in hospitals, government or private, time has come to have a better regulatory mechanism to look into contentious cases, especially fatalities.
He expects five per cent of fatalities to come under the scanner and what cases are to be sent to the chosen panel of medical experts would be decided by him.
Already, the CEO personally looks into treatments costing Rs.1.5 lakh or more. Once the system becomes streamlined, he is optimistic of cases requiring deep probes to come down. While the Trust gets increased focus over the ruckus of delayed payments to network hospitals, it has been initiating reforms in the past few months like the mapping of ailments, mobile app, etc. “We are not a bank just releasing money to make payments,” says Dr. Chandrasekhar.
