Increasing number of corporates are tying up with private and trust hospitals in Mumbai for assured availability of beds and quality treatment for their employees. These liaisons between hospitals and corporates also facilitate an assured revenue flow for most of the hospitals. The process involves a corporate empanelling a hospital and in the process all their employees can avail of facilities at that centre. The hospitals have to give preferential allocation of beds to ensure that there is no denial of services to any corporate client.

These hospital admissions are part of the perks that the employees are entitled to, which are categorized are medical benefits.

With a growth rate of around 5-10 per cent per year, recent years have seen an increase in the number of companies from the corporate sector (all sections of the industry) having a sort of a liaison with many private and charitable trust hospitals for treatment of their employees.

Accordingly, these hospitals are required to have reserved percentage of beds for the employees, consisting mainly of executives and officials of high position. At any given point of time, it would be required of these hospitals to confer priorities to these clients.

Take the case of the premier Breach Candy Hospital and Research Centre, which has close to 140 corporate clients under its belt. According to Dr Santosh Shetty, Manager - Administration of the hospital, "It is actually a kind of a MoU between the hospital and the company. At any given time we have close to 10-12 patients (about 10 per cent) from these companies who are being treated in our hospital."

According to him, these are mostly top executives from whom no deposits are taken. "They are treated on the basis of the amount assured and if the cost exceeds the actuals, it is duly recovered from the company," adds Dr Shetty.

Similar is the case with the 830-bedded Bombay Hospital and Medical Research Centre which has about hundred clients comprising higher and middle-class executives. Says Dr Neelesh D Rajadhyaksha, Officer, Medical Administration, "At any given time we have about 60-70 such executives who are being treated at our hospital. While no fixed percentage of beds are allocated to them, priority has to be given whenever they are admitted in the hospital."

According to him the trend isn't confined to hospitals or companies, but is gaining wider acceptance in other fields as well. As he puts it, "Very soon it would be the TPAs who would be totally handling the liaisons on behalf of the hospital and the company. Already they are working on modalities of making insurance more accessible to the masses and a future takeover into this field would be an added advantage."

Likewise feels Dr Atul Adaniya, Assistant Medical Director of Sir H N Hospital and Research Centre. Says he, "With TPA's having entered the market, the value of cashless service with preference in treatment would have a tremendous lure. Moreover, with IRDA having opened the scope of TPA to the public sector insurers, the trend of PPO and HMO with facilitation of customers will increase. There will be no figures involved or available, in general, except for the numbers available from the growing registrations with the TPA's. Being cashless and getting extra facilitation and priority over routine, is the USP of this transaction."

With complexity paving way for simplicity, the number of companies trying to hook themselves with the hospitals might witness an even more enthusiastic rise. This might even give an opportunity to the government/municipal hospitals to be considered, all if the TPA's could be successful in converting their ground dreams into reality. As Dr Adaniya puts it, "These are symbiotic relationships, win-win for all (company-employee-hospital)."