Chandigarh, November 1
How many drips you think a patient can be administered in a day? Well, if you are admitted to any of the corporate hospitals, the count could range between 30 and 40! Not humanly possible, but this is what a bill given to a patient at a renowned hospital in Mohali showed.
At times, inflated hospital bills include charges for medicines the patient never uses, investigations that are never conducted, charges for doctors who never visit and even implants that are not inserted. All these are components of an inflated billing system in most private hospitals.
In case a patient who has undergone cardiac surgery complains of stomach ache, he would have to pay separately for a gastroenterologist’s visit. Reason: the development is not part of the cardiac package. Similarly, even for a minor headache another doctor’s visit would be charged. And for patients who are uneducated or from rural areas or are not alert enough to understand what is going on, the doctor need not visit at all but the patient is still charged.
A patient in the emergency or in the intensive care unit (ICU) is sitting duck for such hospitals. All sorts of unwanted investigations and medicines are prescribed as in that state the possibility of the patient or his attendants raising an objection to any expenditure is the least.
“In many cases, we have even discovered that the investigations, which have been billed to the patient during his hospital stay, have not even been carried out and fake reports have been generated to complete the paperwork,” pointed out a third party administrator for a health insurance company.
Medicines, drips and consumables worth thousands are billed to the patient while he is admitted in the hospital. “Whether these were actually used by the patient can only be verified by an educated and alert attendant but in situations where attendants are not allowed
to be with the patient the hospital is free to write anything as part of the bill,” added a patient who has filed a case in the consumer court against a private hospital for overcharging him.
One hospital in Mohali bills patients on basis of their “paying capacity”. “If a patient has asked for a single room admission, it is obvious he can pay. Hence, all sorts of frivolous charges are added to the patient’s bill. Our hospital was till recently charging
VAT from patients!” revealed a doctor employed in the hospital.
The fleecing starts at the point where a patient is asked if his health is insured and for how much. Patients who come to the hospital for cashless treatment through insurance companies are liable to be charged almost three times more for the same treatment that a self-paying patient has to pay. “Whatever the problem, if a patient tells the hospital that he is insured for let’s say Rs 3.5 lakh, the bill would be around this figure,” said the third party administrator, adding that 85 per cent of the bills he got for investigations were
inflated.
(To be concluded)
