Sharing beds with the private sector
Forget big PPPs – public payors with limited bed capacity are increasingly striking deals with private operators.
James Cercone, president and founder of healthcare consultancy Sanigest Internacional, says he has seen a powerful push for governments in many countries to buy bed capacity from private operators. This helps both sides, he says. “Across East Europe, Latin America and Asia most private operators have at best 50% occupancy.” He says he is yet to meet a private hospital CEO who is not willing to trade lower prices for 80% occupancy.
So a win/win?
Yes, but headaches remain. Private hospitals need to differentiate their private beds from public beds. “Many private patients pay to be away from the masses.”
From a regulator perspective there is another problem. “We looked at mortality rates at a hospital in the Bahamas and found that they were double in the public wards of the private hospital – even though the same nurses and doctors were involved. I guess they just didn’t give the public patients the same level of care.”
He says this is a particular problem in India.
All this highlights the almost complete lack of proper regulation in most emerging market hospitals – pubic or private.
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