Increasing Support for Patients in the Private Sector

To increase support for Tuberculosis (TB) patients coming from the private sector, the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) has affirmed that public health response to all TB patients notified from the private sector will be the responsibility of the public health system. ​

Patients support services like adherence support, drug susceptibility testing, comorbidity detection, recording treatment outcomes, and infection prevention measures are already being extended to patients in the private sector. ​

Benefits given to TB patients in the public sector have also been extended to patients in the private sector including social welfare support.

As per the National Strategic Plan (NSP) 2017-25, support to patients from the private sector has already increased as follows:

• Nikshay Poshan Yojana (NPY): A nutritional support of 500 INR per month for the entire duration of treatment will be extended to all TB patients irrespective of the sector from which they seek treatment.
• Nikshay Sampark: A National Call Centre will serve as a platform for grievance redressal, notification of TB patients, and for treatment adherence support. This can be particularly useful in the case of private sector notification.
• Expanding the Patient-Provider Support Agency (PPSA) to 45 cities: This scheme comes with several supports for the private sector patients.
  • Free diagnosis with public sector Cartridge Based Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (CBNAAT)
  • Augmenting private sector notification, bringing them under the ambit of the support scheme
  • Free treatment with voucher mechanisms at the chemist shop
  • Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) of NPY.
• Incentives to private providers/ chemists for notification and reporting treatment outcomes: As per NTEP’s recent policy 500 INR would be given at the time of TB notification and another 500 INR at the time of reporting the treatment outcome.

Increasing the reach to private providers and supporting patients under care in the private health sector has been the priority agenda of NTEP under Universal Access to TB Care. There has been much scope for innovations in this area.

Future Priority Areas to Explore 

• Extending PPSA initiative to other cities
• Establishing linkage to co-infection management in the private sector
• Establishing linkage to Drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) management in the private sector
• Expanding the scope of standards for TB care in India to be adopted by all practitioners in India (with a formal mechanism to review)
• TB drug sales surveillance to track all the un-notified TB cases

Resources

• National Strategic Plan for Tuberculosis Elimination, 2017–2025.

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