Ahead of the Union Budget, Sterling Hospitals emphasized the need for sustained and targeted investments in India’s healthcare sector to strengthen delivery capacity, improve affordability and support long term system resilience.

Amarendra Kumar Gupta, Chief Financial Officer, Sterling Hospitals, said that enhancing public healthcare allocation will play a crucial role in ensuring smoother implementation of government health schemes and improving patient outcomes. “An increase in allocation for public healthcare programs such as Ayushman Bharat will help streamline payments, support hospital operations and enable healthcare providers to continue delivering quality care at scale,” said Amarendra Kumar Gupta.

He noted that aligning healthcare spending with the National Health Policy’s long term target of 2.5% of GDP would provide the necessary momentum for infrastructure development, technology adoption and workforce expansion across the sector.

Amarendra Kumar Gupta also highlighted the importance of budgetary incentives for private hospitals to invest in capacity building and skilled manpower development, including nursing, ICU care professionals, allied healthcare staff and medical technicians. “Focused incentives for training and scaling allied healthcare professionals can help address skill gaps, improve operational efficiency and reduce overall healthcare delivery costs, directly benefiting patients,” he added.

On the technology front, Sterling Hospitals advocated tax support and targeted incentives should be provided for indigenously developed Indian surgical devices and AI-assisted programmes to reduce the heavy cost burden of procuring and maintaining expensive MNC equipment. At the same time, private hospitals should be encouraged to adopt AI-enabled techniques supported by collaborations with leading foreign hospitals and healthcare institutions, enabling faster technology transfer, skill development, and localisation of advanced medical innovations in India, while improving affordability and patient outcomes. “Encouraging domestic innovation in medical devices and digital healthcare will strengthen self-reliance while improving affordability and access,” Amarendra Kumar Gupta said.

The hospital group also underlined the need for faster regulatory clearances for indigenous drug development and clinical research, enabling quicker response during public health emergencies and supporting India’s growing life sciences ecosystem.

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In addition, Gupta emphasised the urgent need to strengthen governance mechanisms under public health schemes to ensure time-bound resolution of health insurance and reimbursement -related issues. Delays in claim processing and dispute resolution often place significant financial strain on both hospitals and patients’ families, who are compelled to bear treatment costs while disputes remain unresolved.

A structured, transparent, and accountable grievance redressal framework would help ease this financial stress and improve trust in public health schemes.

Given that a majority of disputes are financial in nature, affected patients and their families often face prolonged hardship while funding ongoing care. To mitigate this, faster dispute resolution must be prioritised, with a fixed and enforceable timeline of 30 to 45 days for grievance redressal. Such a measure would significantly reduce patient distress, ensure financial predictability for hospitals, and strengthen the overall effectiveness and credibility of public health insurance programmes.

Sterling Hospitals reiterated that a balanced Budget approach focused on higher healthcare investment, private sector participation, domestic innovation and efficient governance will support sustainable growth of India’s healthcare system and enhance patient care delivery nationwide.