Budget 2024: Key things healthcare sector expects from Union Budget by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

By Dr. Harsh Mahajan

Budget Expectations 2024: As India moves towards becoming a developed nation, the healthcare sector is a key enabler in supporting the country’s goals of inclusive growth, sustainable development and a bright future for its citizens. Over the past decade, India has made significant strides in healthcare, with significant advances in infrastructure, technology and accessibility.

While the government has undertaken many significant reforms for the healthcare sector, industry stakeholders have high expectations from the new government regarding the healthcare needs of the country, especially with regard to public health expenditure, which is expected to increase to 2.5% of GDP by 2025, as per the National Health Policy 2017. To improve healthcare infrastructure, it is necessary to adjust the financing schemes to meet the needs of the sector, ensuring a minimum loan tenure of 10 years. This should include medical colleges and their academic and hospital wings, including nursing and allied health services.

Standardization in clinical practice through robust implementation of Standard Treatment Guidelines across all states is essential. To address NCDs like cancer, a nodal agency for cancer care should be established to consolidate and simplify the various programs and regulations currently in place in different departments and include innovative screening technologies (AI/non-AI) for early detection of diseases in national programmatic guidelines.

We need to strengthen the Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) and extend the limit to ₹10 lakhs for the entire covered population and ₹15 lakhs for specific diseases like organ transplants, cancer treatment etc. Further, a scientific study of the cost of various treatments under AB-PMJAY is needed to arrive at sustainable reimbursement rates, encouraging private healthcare providers to participate and helping to extend the scheme to the elderly (70 years and above), as announced by the government, and the underserved. Feasible package rates are crucial for existing private secondary and tertiary care hospitals to come on board and newer hospitals can be built to cater to the increased number of patients who would benefit from the scheme.

Expanding and strengthening the health workforce is also critical for India’s health sector. An ‘Enhanced Group on National Health Force’ should be set up to provide a multi-stakeholder platform for developing a comprehensive workforce development strategy. A national-level registry for all types of health workers can be created to serve as a tool to assist central and state governments in planning upskilling and interventions for equitable distribution of the workforce. We also need to develop an epidemiological ‘needs-based’ model for health workforce planning that takes into account population health needs, disease burden, population growth, healthcare infrastructure and other critical parameters. Such a model could use population demographic projections to estimate the number of nurses and doctors required to provide this essential set of services in 2047.

To make doing business easier, we need to reduce the compliance burden by establishing a Single Window Clearance for the healthcare industry for investors and companies. Currently, 55+ licenses are required, with many portals in different states requesting similar data requirements along with multiple application and payment processes. There are 179 laws, regulations, rules and guidelines that apply to healthcare organizations. The implementation of the Clinical Establishment Act should be uniform across all states.

Moreover, it is important to enable hospitals and healthcare facilities to avail input tax credit (ITC) under the GST regime to make the credit chain accessible to the healthcare sector. Currently, healthcare facilities are not allowed to avail ITC, leading to higher cost of services for patients.

(The author is Chairman, Health Services Committee, FICCI and Founder & Chief Radiologist, Mahajan Imaging & Labs)