Relief for private hospitals as Centre releases Rs 250 crore

New Delhi: The Centre released nearly Rs 250 crore under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) — over the past month — to clear dues towards treatment of its beneficiaries at select private hospitals, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and Association of Healthcare Providers, India (AHPI), said in a statement on Friday.

The associations claimed that the action was consequent to submission of a memorandum and meeting with Union state finance minister Anurag Thakur and other CGHS officials. They added: “While the total outstanding was close to Rs 1,000 crore, the approved outstanding from CGHS as on date was Rs 450 crore, which hospitals would get forthwith.”

IMA and AHPI would continue to insist that all outstanding amount was paid on urgent basis, as the hospitals — being pushed to the brink of unsustainability — would be constrained to suspend cashless services, officials said.

Last month, AHPI — that claims to represent some of the country’s top hospitals, including Max, Fortis, Medanta and BLK — had approached the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) demanding payment of dues with respect to treatment of CGHS and Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) beneficiaries. Dr Girdhar J Gyani, the director general of AHPI told TOI the government owes about Rs 245 crore (Rs 165 crore CGHS and Rs 80 crore ECHS) to the Max group of hospitals, Rs 225 crore (Rs 70 crore CGHS and Rs 155 crore ECHS) to the Fortis group and Rs 73 crore (Rs 42 crore CGHS and Rs 31 crore ECHS) to Medanta Medcity.