Upset with pending dues of over ₹110 crore from the State Health Department-run Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust (SAST), private hospitals empanelled to provide super-speciality treatment to beneficiaries under various government insurance schemes have threatened to discontinue enrolling new patients from January 16.
Nearly 300 hospitals that are members of the Federation of Healthcare Associations (FHA), Karnataka, a consortium of Registered Private Hospital Associations formed recently, have now demanded that the government clear the dues without delay.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to defuse the situation, SAST is likely to make a partial payment of ₹35 crore to hospitals in a day or two, according to a government source.
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“In the interest of patients, we will continue treatment of existing in-patients. However, we will stop enrolling new patients till our issue is addressed,” said S.C. Nagendra Swamy, principal coordinator of FHA-Karnataka.
Addressing presspersons here, Dr. Swamy said: “Although the contractual terms mandate that hospitals’ dues have to be cleared within seven days of providing services to scheme patients, our dues have not been cleared for the last six months. We are finding it difficult to pay our suppliers, staff and other agencies and we had given a two weeks’ notice to SAST last month.”
However, the hospitals will not stop two other schemes of SAST — Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) and Mukhyamantri Santwana Harish Yojana for accident victims.
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Budget constraints
While SAST executive director Ratan U. Kelkar did not respond to repeated calls made by The Hindu , an official source in SAST said the dues had accumulated owing to “budget constraints”.
More beneficiaries
“Although the trust has budgetary allocations for an average 40,000 beneficiaries a year, the numbers rose to 57,000 in 2016 owing to awareness campaigns.
The trust has now requested for additional funds of ₹110 crore and the file is under process,” the source said.