MedTech industry comes together to support Ayushman Bharat scheme

Leading industry bodies representing the med-tech sector came together to discuss ways to strengthen healthcare delivery under Ayushman Bharat scheme

The bodies came together at MTaI MedTekon 2018 recently to discuss the Ayushman Bharat scheme, a government programme to enable the bottom 40 per cent of India’s population access healthcare for free.

Representatives of Medical Technology Association of India (MTaI), Advance Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), AmCham Medical Devices Committee, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Healthcare Federation of India (NATHEALTH) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI), underscoring their solidarity, huddled up with government officials, doctors, investors and patients’ groups to chalk out a roadmap for the industry to contribute effectively to the world’s largest healthcare reform programme.

“We admire the vision of inclusion behind Ayushman Bharat and the programme’s massive scale. It has the ability to stimulate the economy due to its impact on the health of the labor force as well as provide a new ecosystem in healthcare business which can sprout a thousand new ladders of commercial success,” MTaI Chairman Pavan Choudary said.

For the scheme, the government has recommended maximum allowable costing for 1363 health procedures. Probir Das, Senior Vice President, Healthcare Federation of India (NATHEALTH), said, “The cost structure still needs work. While for many procedures the cost may be optimum, for several, it may require a re-think. The ideal way to resolve this problem will be to keep the cost of medical devices outside the procedure costs. Also, given the fact that international MedTech companies use their global network to train physicians and develop modern therapies in India, they should be considered as a vital pillar for consultation and programme development.”

Badhri Iyengar, Chairman, FICCI’s Medical Devices & Equipment Committee, commented, “Medical devices and diagnostic services are very important in health treatments. By the virtue of this, we feel that the medical technology industry is an important stakeholder for Ayushman Bharat. We are committed to contributing in letter and spirit to the successful implementation of the pathbreaking scheme.”

The summit was inaugurated by Dr Vinod K Paul, Member, NITI Aayog. In his speech, Dr Paul said “Ayushman Bharat is based on three pillars: Primary Health, Diagnosis and Health Insurance. The scheme at present takes care of lowest two quintiles of our population. It is an integrated healthcare scheme where we have integrated the public and private sectors and given patients the power to decide where they want to access the healthcare services from. To me, it is an anti-poverty measure which prevents people from falling into poverty due to healthcare requirements. I believe if we save a healthy life for a year, we can add 1.5 per cent to the GDP.”

During the summit, MTaI unveiled a theme paper entitled ‘MedTech – The Keystone for Ayushman Bharat’. The paper presents Ayushman Bharat scheme in summary and points out the concerns of stakeholders which need to be dovetailed to ensure success. The theme paper also brings out the possible solution to these concerns.