Centre Plans Cap on Private Hospital Costs to Curb Inflated Treatment and Equipment Charges

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, is contemplating finding out a device to cap the inflated medical costs in private hospitals and nursing homes. Allegations are that, apart from inflated charges in medical treatment, private hospitals and nursing homes charge higher costs than the market rates for equipment like syringes, cannulas, gloves, pacemakers, etc. that a patient has to buy.

According to official sources, the ministry lays stress on insulating patients from overcharges for costly medical equipment installed in the private hospitals. It also stresses keeping the trade margin (billing) within a cap. The ministry is stepping up to give a respite to the patients from inflated medical costs. The ministry is also taking related agencies like health insurance into confidence before taking the final decision in this regard.

According to sources, the Assam government occasionally enacts legislation in the line of the Union Ministry’s existing act to regularize the private hospitals. However, due to lack of timely implementation and regular monitoring, the situation is not going in the right direction. The private hospitals continue to charge inflated medical costs from patients, sources said.

A general allegation is that private hospitals, as often as not, admit patients to ICUs (intensive care units) regardless of the seriousness of patients, leading to inflated treatment bills.

Private hospitals had a practice of withholding bodies until bill payments. However, with the intervention of the state government, hospitals now cannot refuse to hand over bodies to their attendants for non-clearance of bills. The government instructed hospitals to hand over bodies to their kin without any hindrance, and the issue of the bill payment settlement will come later.

Despite 14 government medical colleges, an AIIMS and several superspeciality hospitals being operational in the state, private hospitals and nursing homes have been dotting the state.

When this reporter asked attendants of patients as to why they rush to private hospitals, bypassing the government hospitals and medical colleges, most of them said that the quick and prompt response makes the private hospitals different from their government counterparts that have a meandering process right from the initiation of the treatment to the end. If any patient needs tests like a CT scan, ultrasound, and the like, he or she needs to wait for seven to ten days. Apart from these issues, junior doctors visit patients in beds without giving any conclusive diagnoses. Senior doctors hardly visit patients.

According to sources, this lethargy may happen due to overcrowding of patients, shortage of senior doctors, shortage of equipment, etc. in government hospitals.

Regardless of the circumstances, this situation forces patients to seek treatment at private hospitals, which often charge exorbitant fees.

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