AP Government Suspends 39 Private Hospitals from Aarogyasri List
Vijayawada: Acting firmly, the Andhra Pradesh government removed from the list of Aarogyasri 39 private hospitals, which had stopped providing healthcare services to people under the YSR Aarogyasri scheme, and served a show-cause notice to them on Friday.
Several private hospitals had stopped providing healthcare to patients under the Aarogyasri and Employees’ Health Scheme from Thursday, January 25, on grounds that the state government has not released nearly Rs 1,200 crore due to them since June 2023. They appealed for the immediate release of at least Rs 560 crore of dues, which the government had promised to release last December.
Authorities from Dr YSR Aarogyasri Healthcare Trust held parleys with the managements of private hospitals which stopped healthcare service all through Thursday until late into the night to persuade them to resume healthcare and avoid any trouble for patients.
Some hospitals changed their mind and started providing healthcare services under the Aarogyasri scheme after getting an assurance that their dues would be settled soon. However, other hospitals did not budge from their stand, claiming that unless their dues were cleared, they would not resume Aarogyasri services.
Aarogyasri trust authorities in the interim convinced the state government to release dues of Rs 318 crore on Thursday night itself. When they found that certain hospitals had failed to resume healthcare service, the trust authorities suspended permission given to them to provide healthcare under the Aarogyasri scheme. They called for an explanation from the hospitals and said they would take an appropriate decision based on their answer.
Aarogyasri Healthcare Trust chief executive officer D.K. Balaji said, “Only a few hospitals have stopped providing healthcare service to patients under the Aarogyasri scheme. We have released Rs 318 crore last night itself. As some hospitals are still not providing healthcare, we have suspended the permission given to them for treating patients under the Aarogyasri scheme.”
The trust authorities maintain that Rs 2,500 crore have been released to hospitals so far under Aarogyasri during the current fiscal. They said district coordinators of the scheme are taking care of patients denied treatment by referring them to other empanelled hospitals or to government medical hospitals.
However, private doctors are continuing to express their inability to treat patients under the scheme without their dues getting cleared. They say they are running short of money with 92.3 per cent population of the state availing healthcare from them, with 2,800 procedures permitted under the scheme.
