This is in reference to the recent government action against Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital to recover 175 crores just because they changed the trust constitution & ran some few innovative non health earning centres within the premises. http://m.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/government-and-policy/article3324975.ece/?page=1
My take:
I guess unless govt is healthcare provider friendly there will not be many takers for creating a good quality health setup. Govt seems to become greedy when a pvt setup creates gold out of dust. The case seems to be duplicated in almost all professionally run centres now - seven hills, fortis vashi & others whoa re all in some trouble even with agreed MOUs. Govt needs to realize that no pvt setup will be there without profits for self sustenance even if it is a trust run centre. All prudent establishments who don't want to run on donations will want a self sustenance model. Govt should be happy that its city has such brilliant health setups catering to their obligation towards its citizens of providing excellent health facilities which they fail to do on their own.
Dear Govt, please be supportive of all who want to provide a brilliant setup &, please hand hold them. Make it un-bureaucratic, attractive, & un interfering so more private enterprises show willingness to invest in great quality health setups & ultimately providing world class healthcare to all with investments & maintainence from government.
Dr Akash S Rajpal
MD & CEO
Ekohealth Management Consultants PVT LTD
Feature on Young Turks-CNBC: http://t.co/hkzEzeDY
Feature in Entrepreneur Magazine: http://lnkd.in/PwN4H4
Feature in Business India Magazine: http://www.scribd.com/doc/82435630/
Feature on CNBC : http://youtu.be/Nh5vpH_SErE
Website:
www.ekohealth.in
Linked in :
http://in.linkedin.com/in/akashrajpal
Facebook :
http://www.facebook.com/ekohealth
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/ekohealthindia
Sent from a Blackberry Device.
This communication is for intended recipients only. Standard confidentiality and nondisclosure clauses applicable.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Is marketing a healthcare provider ethically also 'ethical?
I was at Raipur & Korba, Chattisgadh last few days to promote 'Ekohealth' through road shows. I had interesting interactions with the medical fraternity & other stakeholders. A lot of them were surprised when I told them that Ekohealth will not take any 'cut' from them if Ekohealth patients come to them.
I said that someone had to begin ethical medical practice as unethical practice of referral fees is degrading the competence & faith in such a lovely profession.
On this many practitioners put forward their pain points on how difficult it is to get patients without referral fees.
Obviously, much of medical establishment is driven by doctors turned owners. Almost all of them are uncomfortable working for 'others'.
This creates a problem. Almost none of them get time to write about their good work, give adequate attention to patients & this leads to a degrading practice over a period of time. Such doctors who were busy earlier are find lesser patients coming to them in many centres. They never invested in themselves.
They never took opportunity to 'brand' themselves through publishing articles, creating patient forums, taking customer feedback & thus loosing an opportunity to act on it for appropriate course correction.
This also leads to a desperate 'spegheti' marketing & advertisement which is unethical in a lot of ways, but also unfruitful. So I have always propagated my belief of handholding your patient as a 'customer' who expects 'satisfaction' like any other purchase of a product. Today customer is smarter than before & therefore the patient too, as they both are the same.
One elderly gentleman during my interaction pointed out that in this case even writing articles, telling people how many amazing surgeries you have done, clinical outcomes etc is also 'marketing' & is therefore unethical. And he was very uncomfortable with patient being termed as 'customer'.
On this I deliberated that doctors are themselves to blame for it. They made patients customer the day they started encouraging a 'referral fee'. This ultimately made costs higher & patient started counting value for the buck. This also paved way for more professionally run corporate setups.
I told him that its absolutely fair that one's achievement be known to patients, else how would he know?
And unless you write on internet or contribute to various publications sharing your research outcomes, & learnings from the experience how would your peers & patients know you exist. Writing well would increase confidence among all stakeholders & create ethical peer referrals & direct patients.
I think he was convinced in the end.
Dr Akash S Rajpal
MD & CEO
Ekohealth Management Consultants PVT LTD
Feature on Young Turks-CNBC: http://t.co/hkzEzeDY
Feature in Entrepreneur Magazine: http://lnkd.in/PwN4H4
Feature in Business India Magazine: http://www.scribd.com/doc/82435630/
Feature on CNBC : http://youtu.be/Nh5vpH_SErE
Website:
www.ekohealth.in
Linked in :
http://in.linkedin.com/in/akashrajpal
Facebook :
http://www.facebook.com/ekohealth
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/ekohealthindia
Sent from a Blackberry Device.
This communication is for intended recipients only. Standard confidentiality and nondisclosure clauses applicable.
I said that someone had to begin ethical medical practice as unethical practice of referral fees is degrading the competence & faith in such a lovely profession.
On this many practitioners put forward their pain points on how difficult it is to get patients without referral fees.
Obviously, much of medical establishment is driven by doctors turned owners. Almost all of them are uncomfortable working for 'others'.
This creates a problem. Almost none of them get time to write about their good work, give adequate attention to patients & this leads to a degrading practice over a period of time. Such doctors who were busy earlier are find lesser patients coming to them in many centres. They never invested in themselves.
They never took opportunity to 'brand' themselves through publishing articles, creating patient forums, taking customer feedback & thus loosing an opportunity to act on it for appropriate course correction.
This also leads to a desperate 'spegheti' marketing & advertisement which is unethical in a lot of ways, but also unfruitful. So I have always propagated my belief of handholding your patient as a 'customer' who expects 'satisfaction' like any other purchase of a product. Today customer is smarter than before & therefore the patient too, as they both are the same.
One elderly gentleman during my interaction pointed out that in this case even writing articles, telling people how many amazing surgeries you have done, clinical outcomes etc is also 'marketing' & is therefore unethical. And he was very uncomfortable with patient being termed as 'customer'.
On this I deliberated that doctors are themselves to blame for it. They made patients customer the day they started encouraging a 'referral fee'. This ultimately made costs higher & patient started counting value for the buck. This also paved way for more professionally run corporate setups.
I told him that its absolutely fair that one's achievement be known to patients, else how would he know?
And unless you write on internet or contribute to various publications sharing your research outcomes, & learnings from the experience how would your peers & patients know you exist. Writing well would increase confidence among all stakeholders & create ethical peer referrals & direct patients.
I think he was convinced in the end.
Dr Akash S Rajpal
MD & CEO
Ekohealth Management Consultants PVT LTD
Feature on Young Turks-CNBC: http://t.co/hkzEzeDY
Feature in Entrepreneur Magazine: http://lnkd.in/PwN4H4
Feature in Business India Magazine: http://www.scribd.com/doc/82435630/
Feature on CNBC : http://youtu.be/Nh5vpH_SErE
Website:
www.ekohealth.in
Linked in :
http://in.linkedin.com/in/akashrajpal
Facebook :
http://www.facebook.com/ekohealth
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/ekohealthindia
Sent from a Blackberry Device.
This communication is for intended recipients only. Standard confidentiality and nondisclosure clauses applicable.
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