Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir State Health Agency (SHA) today stated that 43 hospitals and dialysis centres have been empanelled till now under the SEHAT scheme in Kashmir division, which are on an average catering to over 452 dialysis patients on a daily basis.
Reacting to a media report regarding sufferings caused to some dialysis patients, the SHA in a statement said that Khyber Hospital, through emails on August 10, 2021 and November 20, 2021, had requested the Agency for empanelment. The SHA held several meetings with the administration of the Khyber Hospital, requesting it to continue the services as an empanelled hospital under the scheme.
The hospital gave various reasons and expressed unwillingness for the renewal of the contract, including financial crunch faced by the hospital, payments pending with the insurance company, backlog of cases and poor response of SHA J&K and insurance company on non-payment of cases, the statement said.
All the concerns raised by the hospital were examined by SHA while the concerns regarding non-payment of claims were nullified by the insurance company as per the data, the statement said.
It said SHA organized several meetings from time to time, addressing various issues of the Khyber hospital and review of the rejected cases. The genuine issues of the hospital were addressed and it was also supported by way of relaxing turn around time (TAT) guidelines when and wherever it was necessary.
The statement said that the insurance company reported that the Khyber hospital did not adhere to TAT guidelines issued by the National Health Authority which led to the rejection of claims of the hospital by it.
The SHA statement said that any empanelled hospital under the scheme is supposed to extend all the available services to the beneficiaries under the schemes and cannot cherry pick the procedures/specialities as per their choices and convenience – as has been the case with Khyber Hospital, which has not shown its willingness to extent the entire gamut of available services.
For smooth relocation of patients being served by Khyber Hospital, SHA telephonically contacted all such dialysis patients who were receiving dialysis services at Khyber Hospital and they are being adjusted in other centres. It said spare dialysis capacities are still available.
SHA reiterated commitment to provide cashless services to the empanelled hospitals and dialysis centres. The agency has paid Rs 792.5 crore to the empanelled hospitals till now and there is no backlog of payment under the ongoing policy, it said.
