Private hospitals threaten to quit SSO
The Private Hospitals' Association is threatening to stop accepting Social Security Office (SSO) members as patients next year after it failed to receive a reply for an increased per-head subsidy.
The association represents 218 private hospitals. President Dr Prapa Wongphaet told a news conference yesterday that due to the failure to respond to the request for per-head subsidy increase, the association would not offer members as SSO-network hospitals. The deadline to join the network is March 31. The association will wait for a clear announcement from the SSO on how much the subsidy will be for 2008, she said. Prapa added that the hospitals currently shouldered a 40-per-cent increase in medical bills. They want the SSO to swiftly consider an increase. "The hospitals can no longer bear the increased financial burden without knowing if the SSO will hike the subsidy or not," she said. The current per-patient subsidy is Bt1,250 - compared with the National Health Security Office (NHSO) rate of Bt2,096, she added. She said at least six million SSO members would be affected if the hospitals did not join the SSO-network. The office has until the end of the year to act on an increase. If there is still no action by then, private hospitals will start refusing SSO patients. They will have to be treated elsewhere and seek reimbursement for payment. SSO secretary-general Surin Jirawisith said the office had not ignored the association. He explained its medical committee had proposed a Bt40 increase plus expenses for serious illnesses. Some committee members - including those from private hospitals - were unhappy. He said they wanted the per-patient subsidy to be hiked to Bt1,537 plus a risk fee of Bt384 per patient, or a total of Bt4 billion. The office benefits committee later proposed a payment of Bt1,358 per head plus a risk fee of Bt339 per patient, or a total of Bt2 billion. He said the figures were yet to be finalised. If they were not accepted by the end of the year, private hospitals had a right to end participation in the SSO-network. He added SSO members could attend state hospitals such as Raja-vithi Hospital and Wachirapayaban Hospital that needed SSO members. Per-patient subsidies differed between the SSO and NHSO because the SSO paid a separate risk fee while the NHSO bundled all payments into one.
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