LV Prasad Eye Institute

LVPEI is successful in
providing equivalent care for patients who live in poverty without the
existence of a widely utilized medical insurance system. It does this by
offering a variety of payment options to its paying patients. A questionnaire
is given to patients to determine their personal wealth, and includes questions
about land and livestock ownership. Their answers are compared to a rubric that
determines whether they will be a paying or nonpaying patient. Patients who
have the ability to pay are then propositioned with the choice of paying for
their singular care, or having their fee doubled, or even tripled, to pay for
the care other patients. Many, many patients volunteer to have their fee
raised, and are deemed “Sight Savers”. There are small ways in which patients
are incentivized to select this option, like shorter wait times to see the
doctor, nicer inpatient wards and surgical priority on the day of surgery
(barring emergencies) so that they endure less time without food and water
prior to their procedure. Excepting these small conveniences and comforts, all
patients’ care is managed in the same way and all patients are treated by the
same doctor.  Another unique aspect is
the ability of LVPEI to provide its own source of amniotic membrane grafts and
corneal tissue, as their eye bank is on location and they have a close working
relationship with a maternity hospital nearby. In addition to supplying corneal
tissue, the eye bank is a steady source of cadaver eyes for use by the trainees
when the tissue quality is determined to be too poor for therapeutic use.  In this way, LVPEI is an impressive
force.  In one stand-alone building, you
have patient wards, operating rooms, clinics, lecture halls, administration, emergency
room, an eye bank, a wet lab, a pathology lab, a cafeteria, and a hostel where
almost all trainees live so they can immediately be available for work duty 7
days per week.