Hospitals association writes to PM; accuses MoHFW of bullying

Private hospitals today sought the intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to prevent the Health Ministry from trying to "bully" them to restore cashless facility to over a crore of CGHS beneficiaries.
Some of the hospitals from Saturday had withdrawn cashless facility for Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) beneficiaries and demanded that government immediately clear the pending amount of over Rs 200 crore due to them.
"It may kindly be informed that hospitals are awaiting their dues for more than 10 weeks (not days). This has been the gross violation of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on part of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on regular basis," Association of Healthcare Providers (India) (AHPI) said in the letter.

"Hospitals have been in dialogue with MoHFW for more than 10 months but have not achieved any results," it said.
The Health Ministry has now issued show cause notices saying hospitals were violating the MoU and has threatened to take action, it said.
"It belies any logic as CGHS having violated the MoU and not paid the dues, is resorting to illegal and unconstitutional methods. It has been failure on their part not to plan for their budget and is now trying to bully hospitals, who have for years been serving faithfully to CGHS beneficiaries," the association said.

"This is to humbly request you to kindly intervene urgently and stop MoHFW in taking illegal route for threatening to hospitals," it said.

The association, an umbrella body of over 600 hospitals, said keeping the human aspect in view, hospitals are still delivering services at CGHS rates on cash payment, which beneficiaries can claim from department.
"Hospitals in exceptional case of critically ill patients and those unable to pay are extending cashless services," it said.
The withdrawal of cashless facility has an effect on over a crore of CGHS beneficiaries including 30 lakh pensioners, 50 lakh serving government employees and their dependents.