Private Sector in Healthcare Delivery Market in India: Structure, Growth and Implications

Shailender Kumar Hooda ()
Additional contact information
Shailender Kumar Hooda: Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, New Delhi

Working Papers from Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID)

Abstract: This study analyses the extent, growth and regional distribution of private healthcare providers in India and draws some implications. Evidence shows that, presently, nearly 10.4 lakh private health enterprises consisting of hospitals/clinics, medical/dental/diagnostics centres, homeopathy/unani/ayurveda centres, nursing homes and social service centres, are providing a wide range of healthcare services in the country. While the private sector has grown since independence, it picked up pace in the 2000s—the liberalised phase of Indian healthcare sector. However, growth has largely been urban-centric, developed regions, and/or areas/districts where existence of public facility is already high. Private sector has failed in mending the deficiency gaps in health services provision across states, districts and rural-urban regions. The number of small informal practitioners has declined over the years, while that of large formal providers have increased. The Indian private hospital sector is shifting towards corporatisation, with the majority currently concentrated in only a few districts of some states. The number of allopathic providers is growing rapidly as compared to AYUSH providers. A large number of practitioners are unskilled (without formal degree) and are not registered under any act/legislation. Over the years, the private sector has overtaken the healthcare provision and delivery market; however, services are not cost-effective. This has resulted in high healthcare cost and high out- of-pocket health payment burden in the country.

Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2015-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://isid.org.in/pdf/WP185.pdf
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://isid.org.in/pdf/WP185.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://isid.org.in/pdf/WP185.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sid:wpaper:185

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Amitava Dey ().