Indians spend 8 times more on private hospitals
Indians spent eight times more on private hospitals and twice as much on transporting patients compared to costs in government hospitals, according to the National Health Accounts (NHA) Estimates for the financial year 2013-14. The data was recently released by the Health Ministry after almost a decade. The NHA monitors the flow of resources in the country’s health system and provides details of health finances.
The estimates say that households spent Rs. 64,628 crore on private hospitals compared to just Rs. 8,193 crore on government hospitals. A total of Rs. 18,149 crore was spent on patient transportation services, like use of an ambulance.
Considering all revenue sources, including government funding, expenditure on private hospitals — Rs. 88,552 crore — was double that on government hospitals — Rs. 41,797 crore.
India spent a total of Rs. 4.5 lakh crore on healthcare in 2013-14 at 4 per cent of the GDP, of which Rs. 3.06 lakh crore came from households. Public spending is abysmally low, constituting around 29 per cent of the total health expenditure — 1 per cent of GDP. There has been a marginal improvement from 2004-05, when the share of government spending was just 22 per cent.
Preventive care gets just 9.6 per cent of the total money that flows in India’s healthcare system. The current expenditure on preventive care is estimated at Rs 40,627 crore. All the government-funded national health programmes such as the National Disease Control Programmes are covered under this category.
Indians’ out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure on healthcare, which is the money individuals pay on their own rather than being covered by insurance or health benefits, has been estimated to be around Rs. 2.9 lakh crore or 69 per cent of total health expenditure (THE) in the country. This is alarmingly high and India stands among the highest in this metric worldwide.
The share of OOP as a percentage of Current Health Expenditure (CHE) has however, decreased from 69.4 per cent in 2004-05 to 64.2 per cent in 2013-14. The CHE comprises 93 per cent, the rest 7 per cent going to Capital Expenditure.
Half of all the household money that is spent on healthcare — around Rs. 1.5 lakh crore — goes to pharmacies. This includes chemists, community and independent pharmacies.
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Unified Payment Interface
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) announced that bank applications for the Unified Payment Interface have officially become operational, which means that UPI apps of banks can now be downloaded and used for transactions:
What is UPI and what can a user do with the app?
UPI is a payment system that allows money transfer between any two bank accounts by using a smartphone. UPI allows a customer to pay directly from a bank account to different merchants, both online and offline, without the hassle of typing credit card details, IFSC code, or net banking/wallet passwords.
How can one download the UPI app?
The UPI app of 19 banks — Andhra Bank, Axis Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Bhartiya Mahila Bank, Canara Bank, Catholic Syrian Bank, DCB Bank, Federal Bank, ICICI Bank, TJSB Sahakari Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Karnataka Bank, UCO Bank, Union Bank of India, United Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, South Indian Bank, Vijaya Bank and YES Bank — will be available on the Google Play Store of Android phones.
How safe is UPI?
It is safe as the customers only share a virtual address and provide no other sensitive information.
What kind transactions can be performed via UPI?
Merchant payments, remittances, bill payments among others.
Is there a per transaction limit?
The per transaction limit is Rs.1 lakh.
How exactly does one make a payment transaction?
A user can make an in-app payment for goods or services purchased online. For instance a site allows purchase of a movie-on-demand. User clicks buy, the site/app triggers the UPI payment link and is taken to the pay screen of the UPI app, where the transaction information is verified and a click followed by entry of a secure PIN completes the purchase.