The health insurance industry has opened up new frontiers and credit rating agencies are vying for a piece of action. Rating agency Crisil has launched the rating service for healthcare companies.
Another rating firm Icra has already announced its plans to rate healthcare companies. The Medical Council of India and Fortis, through an American accreditation agency, are also planning to venture in the field.
Crisil will announce the rating of a couple of metro-based hospitals tomorrow at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Health Summit. According to sources, Crisil has graded some of the facilities of Apollo Hospital at Chennai and New Delhi, and is in talks with other hospitals to rate them on a pilot project basis.
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Crisil managing director R Ravimohan expects that the product will meet the needs of all key constituents of the healthcare industry including hospitals, patients, healthcare insurance companies, third party administrators and the government. Seen as a major revenue model for grading hospital facilities, these agencies are seeking approval of the insurance industry to make it a practice.
The idea is that based on the rating given to facilities of hospitals and nursing homes, TPAs (third party administrators) and insurance companies can then decide whether or not to incorporate those healthcare services into their network of health providers, said industry sources.
A leading TPA official said, "It is important that the grading is on the quality of medical services provided at hospitals, instead of the physical standards." The grade assigned by Crisil to the healthcare institutions on a four point scale (A, B, C and D) will represent the rating agency's opinion on the relative quality of the healthcare delivered by the institution to its patients. According to Crisil, the grading system will be in line with the methodology adopted by international rating agencies in United States, Australia and Canada. A team of two analysts will be interacting with the management of the healthcare institution before assigning it any rating.
The eight broad parameters to be assessed for grading healthcare institutions are medical specialities, quality of support service, regulatory compliance, financial performance, management of evaluation, hospital mission and policy, patient rights and nursing care.