ENT surgeons want insurance companies to bring day-care procedures under their ambit for reimbursement and not make a hospital's bed strength the criteria for conducting such surgeries.
At present, insurance companies mandate that a patient seeking medical insurance must be admitted to a hospital at least for a night.
ENT surgeons say, with advancement in medicine, endoscopic procedures can be provided as outpatient service where the patient can return home in a few hours and resume their daily routine within a few days. Such conditions on the part of the insurance firms burden the patient and also the doctors who run day care clinics as they lose out on patients, the surgeons add.
“The government classifies a clinic with at least 30 beds as a hospital and the insurance companies stipulate that a patient must stay overnight after a procedure to qualify for insurance,” said ENT surgeon A. Muthukumar.
But the advent of endoscopy had not only helped to detect a lot of diseases of the nose but also reduced the time taken to do a surgery. “Endoscopy helps to diagnose cancers in the early stage and do some non-invasive procedures in the skull without opening it,” explained ENT surgeon P. Thulasi Das.
The surgeons were interacting with media persons after the inauguration of a two-day live workshop on ENT endoscopy organised by Krishna Eye and ENT Hospitals. Medical director G. Sundhar Krishnan said in the fifth edition of the workshop ‘ENDO ORL 2012' that was inaugurated on Saturday, 20 live surgeries would be conducted at the hospital and telecast to around 250 delegates at the workshop venue.
Governor K. Rosaiah, who inaugurated the workshop, hoped that it would prove a platform to “share experience and expertise in conducting complicated surgeries with minimal pain and facilitating quick healing in patients.”
Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University vice-chancellor Mayil Vahanan Natarajan said the university had launched several initiatives such as launching an e-journal and Ph.D. programmes, and providing grants for research with the aim of encouraging more medical students to take up research.
