December 29: Insurance premium is becoming the major source of revenue of Bharatpur Hospital. The insurance scheme was started in this hospital four years back. Until now, the hospital has raised revenue of Rs 726.7 million through the insurance scheme. Moreover, Rs 40 million is yet to be collected.

Statistics show that insurance claims have been made 400,000 times since the implementation of the insurance scheme. The health insurance programme in the hospital is supervised by a separate department. According to Liladhar Poudel, who has been overseeing the settlement of claims of the insurance scheme, the health insurance programme was implemented at  the hospital from 18 August, 2007. Initially the programme was launched as a social security programme but now it is overseen by the Health Insurance Board.

According to him, Bharatpur Hospital is the third hospital in the country to treat patients through health insurance. After Noble and Lumbini Medical College, Bharatpur Hospital has been treating many insured patients.

According to Poudel, the hospital collected Rs 32.32 million as income from insurance in the first year when the scheme was launched.

The hospital earned Rs 166.67 million in the fiscal year 2075/76, Rs 209.357 million in fiscal year 2076/77, and only Rs 127.168 million in the last fiscal year 2077/78 year due to Covid-19 pandemic. Poudel has estimated that the hospital will earn more than Rs 250 million in the current fiscal year. Poudel stated that the hospital made claims of Rs 39.1 million last month with the Health Insurance Board.

Out of the total outpatients who came to Bharatpur Hospital on Sunday this week, 734 were insured. On Monday, the number of insured patients was 620 while the number of non-insurance ticket holders was only 327. Bharatpur Hospital receives almost twice the number of insured patients than other patients. Lately, the hospital has been making the insurance programme effective

Prof Dr Krishna Prasad Poudel, medical superintendent of the hospital, said that the Health Insurance Board made payments of Rs 45.2 million in September, Rs 11 million in October, Rs 1.253 million in November and Rs 86.6 million in December.

He said that the hospital has been expanding its services so that the insurance policy holder patients do not have to go elsewhere. According to Poudel, the outpatient service starts from 8:30 am and the surgery service operates till 5 pm. “We are working to provide maximum facilities to the insurance policy holders even though we cannot give all the desired facilities due to lack of manpower and space,” said Poudel.

In the past, when outpatient services were crowded and people had to wait for a long time for surgery, they were forced to take patients to other hospitals where insurance programmes were implemented. While the insurance programme is becoming effective, it is becoming the main source of income of the hospital as well.

Patients from Chitwan and East Nawalparasi come to Bharatpur Hospital to benefit from the insurance scheme. Since this hospital is the Central Hospital, patients from more than 20 districts including Chitwan come here for treatment.

Most of the services provided through the health insurance programme are the services from outpatients’ departments. The board has stated that most of the facilities used by the patients from the insurance are for stomach medicines. The social security programme in Nepal started in 2015.