Hospital chains call for insurance deal with US

New Delhi: Leading hospital chains in India have a unique proposal for US President Barack Obama when he visits India this weekend. These healthcare providers are seeking to put in place a formalised process between the two countries whereby willing US patients can claim reimbursements from their US-based health insurers even when they decide to get their medical procedures done in reputed hospitals in India.

To start with, a pilot of the mechanism could be tested on US citizens of Indian or South Asian origin who divide time between the two countries and volunteer for such a policy. This, Indian healthcare providers maintain, could significantly contribute towards Obama’s goal of reducing healthcare costs in the US.

“With the healthcare costs so high in the US and considering that a large number of Americans do come to India for treatment, President Obama can look at leveraging the high quality, low-cost healthcare model of India and open new vistas for US patients,” said Vishal Bali, CEO, Fortis Hospitals. “That can be achieved when the health insurance firms in US can be persuaded to allow the US citizens to avail of medical services in India and still claim reimbursements,” Bali added.

Max Healthcare CEO Pervez Ahmed feels the same: “The feasibility of this model can be tested by first letting US patients of South Asian origin avail of it. We meet many elderly US citizens of Indian origin who spend a substantial part of the year here. But these people have to insure themselves separately at both places. In fact, Medicare, the US government’s social insurance programme that provides health insurance coverage to elderly people and other special sections of the population is an apt platform to pioneer such a pilot project,” he told FE.

Bali, whose hospital chain has begun exploring the idea by reaching out to US insurers and working with a self-funded employers’ group in US, said that if such a model gets government backing, it would showcase Indian healthcare providers’ compliance with global benchmarks of quality and automatically spur more patients inflow from US, apart from reducing overall healthcare costs in the US.

In India, most common medical procedures cost less than one-sixth in the US. A liver transplant costs above $300,000 in the US, while it costs around $60,000 in India. While a coronary artery bypass graft costs $35,000 in US, it costs $8,500 in India.

In the US, a patient has to...

via financialexpress.com

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