Association of Medical Consultants has over the years emerged as a true representative body of the Medical Consultants in the city of Mumbai and its extended suburbs. It has extended a helping hand to its members whenever they have faced medico-legal trouble. With a total membership of close to 7500 it has been at the forefront of all efforts to liaison with the government on various issues concerning the welfare of its members. With such a large membership it is only fair to expect that the needs/problems of different groups of members will be different. In the past few years members who are running small and medium healthcare setups have increasingly come under government scrutiny. The issue of separate staircase for Nursing homes was one such issue on which it was AMC which took the lead in first mounting a legal challenge and subsequently even convincing the state government to amend the DC rules to make an exception to this rule for already existing health care institutions. The issue of Change of User and NOC from fire department continue to haunt the members who own/run small and medium health care establishments, and it has been AMC which has taken up cudgels on behalf of its members to try and resolve this issue amicably. This sometimes led to a piquant situation wherein other members at times felt all AMC efforts were directed to help Nursing home owners. This however is an erroneous perception as AMC has also in the past taken up issues concerning members who are attached to larger corporate hospitals. In its earlier Avatar it was the Nursing home cell of AMC which took up the issues of the nursing homes and it was later revamped into a Health infrastructure Cell.
It is now accepted that the small and medium healthcare providers namely the nursing homes are being increasingly pushed to a corner. Patients are becoming more demanding necessitating the doctor to spend more time with Patient/Relatives to explain to them the medical conditions of patient. The insurance companies are also demanding lower tariffs to cover for their losses which they claim is due to excess billing and malpractices of some of the providers. Their system of Cashless services had inherent problems such as delayed payment and non-payment after preauthorization and increased burden of paperwork. The Local Tax, Business & Labour laws are becoming stringent and the skilled manpower scarce. The subtle pressure from the larger corporate hospitals also has resulted in Government regulations becoming too overbearing and impossible to comply with. In such scenario, the Nursing Home Owners need a representation & support system so that they can focus on their core competence namely Medical Deliverables. In view of the aforesaid, it was felt in AMC that though the Nursing Home Cell (Infrastructure Cell) has been addressing these difficult issues in a dedicated manner , there was a need to carve out within AMC a more focussed and specifically empowered outfit to find innovative solutions to these problems with a greater sense of urgency. Accordingly, AMC Managing Committee considered the re-incornation of the Nursing Home Cell to AMCNoAH with the avowed objective of creating a cohesive group of small health providers to focus on Nursing homes problems exclusively ,and therefore , more effectively. It would of course function as any of the other Cells of AMC. The AMC-NoAH is designed to be a highly disciplined and motivated unit with adequate checks and balances .It would be empowered to create effective disincentives for non-compliance with directives of the AMC-NoAH issued in the common interests of its members.
Preamble
