Private hospitals are calling on the military government to address problems in the implementation of a policy to provide free medical treatment to emergency patients, saying many of them have been doing so at a loss.
Private Hospital Association (PHA) president Chalerm Harnpanich said private hospitals support the policy but face financial burdens due to a lack of regulations and confusion over "emergency cases".
Introduced by the Yingluck Shinawatra government, the policy seeks to ensure emergency patients receive care regardless of which healthcare scheme they belong to.
There are three healthcare schemes: the Civil Servant's Welfare Fund (CSWF), the Social Security Fund (SSF) and the National Health Security Fund, better known as the 30-baht universal healthcare programme.
However, private hospital operators treating emergency patients are concerned they are unable to transfer the patients to the hospitals where they are enrolled under their scheme after the patients are out of immediate danger. This is partly because some of those hospitals lack enough beds.
"The policy has been in place for more than two years and there are a lot of things to be worked out. Several hospitals are shouldering high costs," Dr Chalerm told a Bangkok hospital seminar yesterday.
A private hospital operator source is urging the state to adjust hospital reimbursement rates, saying the flat rate is too low because private facilities have higher operating costs than state-run ones.
The government has set the reimbursement for each emergency case treated within the first 24 hours at 10,500 baht. The full reimbursement payment is made by the health scheme to which the patient belongs with the National Health Security Office (NHSO) acting as a middleman.
According to the operator, without better rates, private hospitals will have to transfer or discharge patients as soon as possible.
Samrit Srithamrongsawat, deputy secretary of the NHSO, said the policy to provide emergency care to all patients is important and private hospitals play huge roles in it.
In Bangkok and surrounding provinces the ratio between state-run hospitals and private hospitals is 40:60. In the provinces the ratio is 80:20.
