Union Budget 2019 Healthcare Expectations: Generally big policy changes are not announced in interim budgets but there are still expectations with this interim budget because it is seen as Modi govt’s chance to announce big populist moves before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The Modi government has indicated that every decision would be taken after considering larger interests of the economy in mind.
In the healthcare sector, Union Finance Minister Piyush Goyal is expected to make some announcements. The government would like to build on Modicare scheme announced last year by allocating more funds and by increasing tax benefits towards healthcare and preventive checkups.
Talking to the Financial Express Online, Gaurav Gupta, Co- founder of the Navia Life Care sais that health-tech has the potential to alleviate multiple problems in healthcare sector in our country by assisting doctors and healthcare professionals in improving their efficiency, increasing access and reducing costs. “In order to achieve this, continued support to innovation in healthcare sector is required. The government can support private hospitals by promoting the use of technology which helps them to increase their efficiency and reduce costs, and transfer that benefit to patients and also look after their financial health. These technology solutions are currently taxed at 18% GST, it would be helpful in higher adoption if reduced,” Gupta said.
“Also, there needs to be an outlay for training doctors and healthcare professionals for new technologies, so that they can leverage these systems to their maximum potential,” Gupta added.
Talking to Financial Express Online Gupta said that there should be clearer policies and laws around different segments of heath-tech – Video consultation and remote monitoring of patients, e-pharmacy, and digital prescriptions have ambiguous laws. “Clearer laws would help both innovators and users to work with the systems better,” Gupta said.
Pawan Gupta, Co-Founder of Curofy, while talking to Financial Express Online on expectation from Budget 2019 said, “Expectations will be at an all time high this time around. With projects like Modicare, and definite push towards healthcare, we expect a greater role in implementing. them as well as expect an even stronger push towards digitising archaic processes and records.”
“India is a vast country and any scheme that aims at revolutionising the system needs innovation and grit. We would like the government to partner with healthcare start ups to implement their projects and help them establish quality care for the citizens,” Pawan Gupta added.