Access strategies in the era of price control

Several pertinent issues were discussed at the third edition of Healthcare Senate of which, ‘Access strategies in the times of price control’ was one of them. The discussion comprised an expert panel that included Viveka Roychowdhury, Editor, Express Healthcare & Express Pharma (Moderator); Dr Ratna Devi, CEO, DakshamA Health & Founder, IAPG; Dr A Velumani, CEO, Thyrocare; Dr SB Sinha,Advisor, Healthcare Technologies, WHO-Collaborating Centre for Priority Medical Devices & Healthcare Technology Policy, NHSRC, MoH&FW, GoI; Atantra Das Gupta, Director & Head – Health & Medical Equipment, Samsung Healthcare; Dr Akshay Baheti, Assistant Professor, Dept of Radiodiagnosis, Tata Memorial Center, Mumbai & Affiliate Instructor, Dept of Body Imaging, University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle and Dr VK Monga, Honorary Finance Secretary, IMA. Highlighting that Indian healthcare producers and providers in the recent times have been striving under the extreme burden of balancing price control with quality access of medicines and healthcare facilities, they endeavoured to throw more light on the impact and implications of this issue.

They also discussed the merits and demerits of the move and deliberated on pertinent questions such as: Is price control sustainable? If so, for how long? Are there win-win examples in India and other similar countries? If price control is not sustainable as a standalone process in the long term, so what are the missing pieces, to this puzzle that still need to fall in place?

The panelists also recommended bringing the patient to the centre of the decision making process and identifying the root cause for rising healthcare costs to support price control with other effective measures as well.

Key takeaways

• The government should devise healthcare strategies which are sustainable, beneficial to all stakeholders and create a conducive environment to foster a quality healthcare ecosystem.
• One cannot buy gold at the price of iron. The government’s price control strategies should be rational and reasonable, say panelists who are against price control.
• The government should invest in good quality public healthcare infrastructure and provide quality healthcare at competitive costs. This would lead to private healthcare providers offering more affordable healthcare services as well.
• Being the patient to the centre of the decision making process and identify the root cause for rising healthcare costs. Every aspect needs to fall into place to make a healthcare system work. So, price control should be supported by other effective measures as well.
• Panelists supporting price control argue that it will lead to affordability but it is essential to have effective implementation of these strategies as well.

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