Move to Curb Profiteering by Private Hospitals Faces Inordinate Delay

NEW DELHI:
The Delhi government’s move to curb profiteering by private hospitals is getting inordinately delayed as the department of health is yet to finalise the draft policy following suggestions from various stakeholders. The draft was published in May and the state health authorities had said that it would be implemented in a months’ time.
A nine-member panel, which has formulated the draft policy, is currently weighing suggestions and objections raised by various healthcare providers and industry associations, and it is learnt that many hospitals have raised serious objections to key suggestions including waiver on bill in case of patient’s death.
“We are reviewing suggestions from various stakeholders, but at this stage we can’t say when it will be finalised. Some are raising objections to the rules as it will prevent their profiteering,” medical superintendent nursing homes at Delhi Health Directorate Dr RN Das said.
While there appears to be no end in sight to patients’ misery, the unfair pricing by Delhi super-speciality hospitals has become a talking point again with the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) decision to widen its probe into the issue.
The CCI has found “violation of provisions of Section 3 and 4 of the Competition Act of 2002” relating to imposition of unfair prices by private superspeciality hospitals. “Finding prima facie contravention of the provisions of the Act, the Commission referred the matter to the Director General for investigation,” it said in a statement on September 5.
After perusing the material on record, the CCI noted that huge profit margins are being earned by sale of products to the locked-in in-patients to the detriment of such patients. “Considering the mandate given to the CCI to eliminate the practices having adverse effect on competition and to protect the interest of consumers, the Commission decided to widen the scope of investigation to cover the practices of super-specialty hospitals across Delhi in respect of healthcare products and services provided to their in-patients,” it stated.
The investigation will focus on the products sold by the super-specialty hospitals to their in-patients which are not required on an urgent basis for any medical procedure or which do not involve any high degree of quality issue from the medical procedure point of view and “for the purchase of which the patients have the time and scope to exercise their rational choice to purchase such products from open market where such products may be available at lower rates”.
The Delhi government had formed a nine-member panel, which included members from the Indian Medical Association and the Delhi Medical Council, in December 2017 to look into profiteering by private hospitals and the draft guidelines were prepared on the basis of its recommendations. The authorities had put the draft advisory in the public domain to invite objections and suggestions in May.
Doctors’ associations also oppose proposals on consumables’ price cap and waiver on total bill in the case of patient deaths. The draft advisory mooted a 50 per cent waiver on the total bill if a patient dies within six hours of being admitted to a hospital’s emergency or casualty wards. If a patient dies within 24 hours of admission, 20 per cent of the bill should be reduced.
“This provision of refund is illogical and would eventually harm the patient. When a person is admitted to a health facility for critical care, a doctor would be looking at all possible options to save his or her life. And medical intervention can fail due to numerous reasons,” Delhi Medical Association president Dr Ashwani Goyal opined.
“Many small nursing homes functioning on wafer-thin profits will be forced to down shutters with such rules,” he added.