New Delhi: The Karnataka government is yet to clear the bills of thousands, if not lakhs, of patients who were treated in private hospitals under the Ayushman Bharat-Arogya Karnataka scheme, according to a Deccan Herald report.Private hospitals admit patients under a quota mandated by the Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust (SAST), the implementing agency of the Ayushman Bharat-Arogya Karnataka scheme. According to the report, private hospitals in Bengaluru have admitted nearly 2.66 lakh COVID-19 patients since last year under the government quota. Just about 80,000 bills have been cleared so far.While SAST executive director N.T. Abroo said the bills of 1,44,947 patients across the state, amounting to Rs 466.55 crore have been paid, private hospital associations say this data is ‘misleading’. The data provided by the agency also includes patients who were treated at government hospitals, with one source telling Deccan Herald that more than 50% of the bills generated in the first wave have not yet been cleared.The state’s additional chief secretary (health) Jawaid Akhtar told the newspaper that only 200 bills can be cleared in a day. “Limitations in SAST software means the 201st bill gets blocked even if their HR processes it,” he said.“This means only 6,000 payments can be cleared in a month. And this has happened at a time when we are clocking 3,000 cases a day,” Akhtar added.
