MCD invites applications from private hospitals and clinics for healthcare empanelment

New Delhi: Municipal Corporation of Delhi has invited applications from private hospitals, dental clinics, diagnostic and eyecare centres for empanelment to provide healthcare benefits to its employees and pensioners.The centres, already empanelled under the CGHS Delhi or Delhi government employee health services, can apply. The exercise has started afresh as the tenure of already empanelled hospitals will end soon.The process would be carried for the unified MCD now, earlier retired and other staff were refused treatment or faced problems in getting health services from empanelled hospitals as their bills were not paid by the erstwhile civic bodies due to cash crunch. Many retired employees complained to the senior officials about problems they faced due to denial of treatment. “We have invited fresh applications from interested private hospitals and healthcare centres as the three years tenure of previously empanelled centres comes to an end. Now it will be the hospitals or labs to apply for empanelment regardless of their pending dues,” said a senior official. In February 2021, the erstwhile south corporation had carried out the empanelment process on behalf of north, south and east corporations for a period of three years and 72 private hospitals, 47 eyecare, 37 dental and 33 diagnostic centres were chosen to provide curative and diagnostic facilities to the beneficiaries at prevailing CGHS Delhi rates and guidelines. “After MCD’s unification in May 2022, a policy was made according to which a list of hospitals, diagnostic centres etc which were not paid dues for a long time. It was decided that their payment will be made serial number wise in some proportions and the amount was released as well. Thereafter, the hospitals started accepting the MCD employees and providing them healthcare benefits,” said the official. After the completion of fresh empanelment process, the selected healthcare centres will provide services to retired personnel at CGHS rates (which will be reimbursed to the employees later) and cashless to the current employees. “We are sure that things will work smoothly now,” added the official.