Alert on people abusing health scheme
By Pongphon Sarnsamak
The Nation 2011-02-14
Civil servants' purchases to be monitored
The Finance Ministry will investigate state hospitals and doctors across the country for milking the medical benefit scheme after healthcare expenditures for civil servants skyrocketed by over Bt5 billion a year.
"Over Bt1 billion was irregularly spent for drugs prescribed to patients," Supa Piyajitti, a deputy permanent secretary, said last week.
"The ministry is now keeping an eye on doctors who prescribe too many drugs and civil servants and their relatives who abuse their rights," she said.
The ministry's survey from OctoberDecember last year found that over 134,800 civil servants and their relatives with access to the medical benefit scheme visited state hospitals for medical services more than three times a month.
Almost 21,700 civil servants and their relatives had been receiving drugs worth over Bt30,000 a month.
And 6,460 civil servants and their relatives both received medical services more than three times and drugs worth Bt30,000 a month.
Outlays on medical welfare for civil servants had increased drastically from Bt26 billion in 2004 to Bt62 billion last year, of which 83 per cent was for medicine. Most drugs were brand names and expensive. They could be obtained only on doctor's consideration.
From 20042010, medical spending jumped 20 per cent each year, or about Bt5 billion a year.
Generally, patients go to a hospital two times a month to pick up medication from the outpatient department and the cost, especially for chronic diseases, should not exceed Bt20,000 per month.
The ministry has identified 34 hospitals across the country that had filed reimbursement claims for drugs worth about Bt13 billion from October 2008August 2009. About Bt8 billion or 66 per cent of the cost of hospital drugs was for unnecessary and expensive drugs not on the National Essential Drug List.
Prayong Preeyachitt, deputy secretarygeneral of the Public Sector AntiCorruption Commission (PACC), said his agency has teamed up with the ComptrollerGeneral's Department and Department of Special Investigation to find civil servants and their relatives who swindled the government.
Since 2009, PACC has sent the cases of two medical plan members to the National AntiCorruption Commission for further scrutiny and disciplinary action.
The first case was an official who shopped for medication one to three times a week and used his welfare card at several hospitals. The second case was a hospital staff member who pretended to be a patient's relative and got doctors to prescribe drugs.
The abuses fall into three categories, he said. First, patients go to several hospitals, get diagnosed and prescribed drugs, then sell them online or to pharmacies.
Second, hospital staff pretend to be patients' relatives and get doctors to prescribe drugs and third, doctors prescribe far too many drugs, most of which are unnecessary and expensive.
Supa said that since the investigation was at an early stage, she could not answer if there was corruption in civil servant medical welfare.
However, the ministry will audit physicians' prescription behaviour and hospitals. Violators will face disciplinary punishment.
"We will soon arrest cheaters and blacklist those doctors or subscribers who abuse their rights," she said.
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