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Direct payment by patients is currently the
primary source of revenue for private HCIs in AP. Employer
reimbursement, and health insurance payments are yet to be
important sources of income for private HCIs. The increasing trend
of patient fees suggests that the growth in private health care
institutions will continue for some more time. If the environment
for employer reimbursement improves and health insurance schemes
expand, growth of the private health sector may gain additional
impetus for growth. Patient revenue income also appears to be the
dominant source of financing of capital investment in private
health care institutions. More than half of the owner-mangers
reported that they did not require a loan. Those who needed, took
loan mostly from commercial banks, and some took loan from
relatives and friends. Although some credit market difficulties
like too much paper work, unrealistic collateral, etc. are
experienced, owner-managers were not deterred by these to take
loans if they needed them to start or develop their health care
institutions. Data on rates and charges for commonly delivered
clinical and diagnostic services, collected from HCIs and
diagnostic facilities are presented. Majority of private HCIs
operate with unpublished tariffs for their services. It will be
desirable to require private HCIs to publish service charges for
commonly encountered and well defined services, to bring about
some openness in billing practices. The level transparency
Although almost all private HCIs claimed to have some fair
financing arrangement for poor patients, these are mostly informal
and ad-hoc. These informal arrangements of free care or discounted
fees based on doctor’s discretion would benefit some poor and
needy patients, but is incapable of meeting the needs of most of
them.
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