90% of Indians willing to pay more for certified healthcare, finds a new report

Around 83 per cent of patients in India seek objective, accessible information to guide their healthcare choices, and nearly 90 per cent are willing to pay more for certified quality, as per a report by FICCI and EY-Parthenon.

The report, titled ‘True Accountable Care: Maximizing Healthcare Delivery Impact, Efficiently’, outlines a pragmatic roadmap for making India’s healthcare system qualitative and affordable.

While India's healthcare efficiency outperforms that of its global peers, structural and financial pressures underscore the need for a national framework that establishes clear minimum quality standards, enabling patients to make informed healthcare choices, the survey said.

The report, based on research across 250 hospitals in 40 cities with 75,000 beds, surveys of over 1,000 patients and consultations with more than 100 clinicians, as well as consultations with CXOs and investors, stated that bed capacity per capitahas doubled since 2000 in India. The country still has one of the lowest hospital bed densities globally and a dual payor-provider fragmentation challenge with just 25-30 beds per hospital compared to over 100 internationally.

The survey finds that about 83 per cent of patients increasingly seek objective, accessible information to guide their choices and would benefit from a single, trusted source of hospital ratings or clinical outcomes.

Nearly 90 per cent of patients who sought this information say they would pay more for certified quality.

Also, the top five payors are driving only 40 per cent of payouts versus 80 per cent in other developed markets.

The report proposes a value digital framework to strengthen accountable healthcare through five key elements: vital infrastructure, advanced interoperability, leveraging intelligent systems, unified care, and evidence-based governance.

Kaivaan Movdawalla, partner and National Healthcare Leader, EY-Parthenon India, said, "Our report shows strong alignment between patients, who seek transparent quality data and clinicians, who are willing to support standardised outcome measurement and reporting.

“Today, both regulators and organised healthcare providers are demonstrating unprecedented intent to embed best-in-class global standards, while customizing them to the unique complexities of India’s healthcare landscape. The path forward must focus on clinical excellence and patient centricity, delivered through a thoughtful cohort based approach vs. a “one-size fits all” approach and supported by a tiered reimbursement system that rewards quality and outcome,” said Akshay Ravi, Partner, Healthcare Practice, EY-Parthenon India