By Mayank Banerjee
The healthcare industry experts are both closely watching and anticipating significant resource allocations from the upcoming Union Budget 2022-23 for strengthening India’s healthcare system. We have seen a remarkable increase in the healthcare budget in 2021 (Rs. 2.23 lakh crore vs 94,000 crore previously) even though the budget was more intersectional in nature including allocation for water and sanitation.
Like the last budget, the present budget should invest heavily in preventive care by ramping up efforts towards research, diagnostics, and emergency preparedness. And, here are the top six expectations from the Union Budget 2022-23:
Improving the diagnostics infrastructure
According to the CDC, 70% of medical decisions depend on laboratory results. Increasing the number of diagnostic centres and capabilities while driving down the cost of diagnostics will be crucial in improving preventive care and easing the financial burden that comes with hospitalisation when it’s too late.
According to the National Health Mission’s own report on its Free Diagnostic Service Mission, “a package of essential diagnostics, if available free of cost in public health facilities would not only reduce the burden on the poor and the vulnerable but would also be accessible to sections of the middle-class sections that face financial stress on account of expensive health care diagnostics.”
Tackling non-communicable disease burden
Our productive population is also exposed to a bubbling epidemic of non-communicable diseases. Lifestyle disease incidence is doubling every 10 years. 1 in 4 Indians has a risk of dying from an NCD before they reach the age of 70. There is ignorance among the general public about lifestyle risks that delayed diagnosis and adherence to treatment. Moreover, the lack of high-quality data on NCD disease burden negatively impacts effective planning.
Limited number of labs and insufficient diagnostic infrastructure keeps the cost high and out of reach for most Indians. Early interventions in the way of affordable genetic testing and primary care can help resolve some of the issues. Personalised medicine on the basis of a patient’s physical makeup acquired through genetic testing is the need of the hour.
Appending medical data
This should be supplemented by improvements in technology that tie loose ends between diagnosis and treatment so as to give more agency to patients who can have a 360-degree view of their health. We have high hopes from the National Digital Health Mission and how it would improve clinical outcomes when a patient’s entire history is accessible digitally without relying on the patient’s own paperwork and memory.
Digitising healthcare in rural areas
Primary care in rural India is mostly available via publicly-operated Primary Health Care Centres (PHC) and Community Health Centres (CHC) which are sparsely located, under-staffed, and reliant on physical paperwork. There is an urgent need to digitise these centres and offer telehealth to offer quality healthcare at reduced costs. Rural patients would not have to travel distances to receive care when primary care is available over a call or WhatsApp. Much of this is being contemplated under the government’s National Telemedicine Network (NTN). Digitising medical records at PHC and CHC can help industry experts retrieve population health metrics and healthcare providers can quickly identify and attend to patients that require immediate attention.
Offering adequate health coverage to reduce OOPE
High OOP medical costs can eat up financial savings and negatively impact medication adherence and health outcomes. More Indians need affordable health coverage that protects them against not just uncertainties of life but enables them to stay healthy through user-friendly components such as OPD benefits–primary care and diagnostics. OPD contributes to nearly 60% of healthcare expenses. OOPE has pushed nearly 55 million Indians into poverty for having to fund their own healthcare. Healthcare policies also need to be much more transparent in what they can offer as much of the user experience is sullied due to legalese, jargon and endless paperwork.
Creating and simplifying the national organ donation network
At the moment, organ donation is a complicated process. Donation within states is not easy, there is tons of paperwork involved even when the organ donor is related to the person seeking the organ, there is a huge gap in the supply and demand. There is a poor deceased organ donation rate. Maintenance of standards in transplantation, retrieval and tissue banking is another issue. While the government has many guardrails to protect unethical organ donation, we need education and resources to make organ donation efficient as it can potentially save around 500,000 lives each year. An improved national organ donation network makes that possible.
Public-private partnerships to achieve much of these expectations is the need of the hour. Fostering innovation in the healthcare sector will give public policymakers a clear shot in making India one of the healthiest nations in the world.
(Mayank Banerjee is Co-founder and CEO of Even Healthcare. The views expressed are author’s own.)
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