Apollo Hospitals – Statements from leadership on Ayushman Bharat’s Launch

Dr Prathap Reddy, Founder & Chairman, Apollo Hospitals

On the historic launch of the world’s largest health coverage scheme – Ayushman Bharat, I feel as happy as I did when we launched the first universal insurance scheme in my village in the year 1999. I am also filled with a sense of anticipation on the positive effect this scheme will have on the health of the 50 Crore beneficiaries.

My congratulations to the Prime Minister on the launch of this historic initiative.

While we all work together to ensure the success of this scheme, there are areas that need focus and fine tuning.

Ensuring the robustness of the IT backbone, weeding out potential fraud, ensuring coverage to only identified beneficiaries and ensuring more adoption by the private sector, who are rightly worried about the pricing and reimbursements, must remain paramount moving forward.

I believe this scheme is for the greater public good and we must all strive to ensure its success.’

Dr. Preetha Reddy, Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals

The launch of Ayushman Bharat marks a red letter day in the history of Indian healthcare. Never before have we seen a scheme of such ambitious scale, the first phase of which targets health cover for over 50 crore individuals. We look forward to support the Government in this endeavor as the scheme rolls out with the promise of giving succour to millions of patients who would otherwise not have been able to afford or access the treatment required.

Ms. Suneeta Reddy, Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals

The world’s biggest and most ambitious health coverage scheme has been set in motion. The scheme with 1350 procedures covering pre and post hospitalization, diagnostics, medicines packages, including coronary bypass, knee replacements and stenting will be at rates 15-20% cheaper rates than the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS).
While the jury is still out on the viability of the costs for private providers especially large multi-specialty hospitals which incur high infrastructure and operating costs, make substantial investments in modern medical technology, in attracting and retaining the best clinical talent and in securing gold standard accreditation, there is no doubt that a beginning has to be made.
With empanelment of private hospitals, this is the first scheme that recognizes the need and importance of private and public healthcare to work in tandem for the health of our country. It is hoped that over a period, after due review these issues will be taken up and resolved to the satisfaction of all stakeholders.

Ms. Sangita Reddy, Executive Director, Apollo Hospitals

Much has been spoken about Ayushman Bharat and it’s scope of covering 50 cr. people, but not much about the technological backbone that will enable it to achieve this ambitious scale. Indian IT has made a name for itself globally just like Indian healthcare.

The scheme will showcase the strength of Indian technology as IT and data analytics are deployed on a huge scale to monitor implementation and seamless delivery of the scheme and also check on fraudulent claims. Over time, this vast sea of data will help us in , studying disease patterns and designing targeted health schemes to deliver healthcare effectively and efficiently.