PMC issues notices to 172 private hospitals for overcharging Covid patients

Pune: Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) health department has issued notices to 172 private hospitals for overcharging Covid patients

Pune: Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) health department has issued notices to 172 private hospitals for overcharging Covid patients. The civic administration has been instrumental in refunding those who were billed in excess. PMC has been assessing hospitals for their role in overcharging patients based on citizen complaints for the past one year. It has now once again swung back into auditing the hospital billing as part of the citizen grievance redressal mechanism process.

HT Image

Assistant health officer Manisha Naik said that since the outbreak of the second wave in March, the number of complaints regarding overcharging has gone up and PMC is scrutinising each complaint.

“The health department is receiving at least 25 complaints daily and we have acted upon all of them till now. We received complaints against 222 hospitals and notices have been issued to 172 of them. Of them, 90 cases have been addressed, 27 billing have been re-audited, ₹20 lakh has been refunded and 15 complainants could not be traced,” she said.

The health department had issued a notice to a prominent hospital for overcharging 34 patients. When there was no response from the hospital, the department issued a licence cancellation notice and the hospital refunded ₹22 lakh to patients.

Even as the state government has capped Covid treatment in private hospitals under three categories, PMC received several complaints about overcharging by the private hospitals. Hence, PMC launched audit of private hospital bills since March 2021. It was observed that some hospitals overcharged for the treatment under the pretext of other services. The bill amount was charged between ₹2 lakh and ₹8 lakh per person.

PMC health department chief Dr Ashish Bharti said, “We are going to examine every pre and post Covid hospital admission bill.”

District collector Rajesh Deshmukh said that he has issued guidelines to government institutions seeking audit of Covid bills and refund patients. The collector has sought detailed report on total cases of overcharging, refund status and pending figure to be submitted within seven days.

Four docs booked for overcharging Covid patient

The Pimpri-Chinchwad police on May 31 registered a case against four doctors attached with a private hospital in Chakan, for overcharging a Covid-19 patient of ₹1.5 lakh. The patient, a resident of Ozar in Pune district, was admitted to the hospital and charged ₹2.5 lakh towards ventilator, ICU, medication and allied charges. An audit conducted by a panel under Chakan rural hospital superintendent Nanda Dhavale revealed that the bill amount was Rs1.5 lakh more than the actual cost. Later, the Chakan rural hospital superintendent lodged a complaint against the four doctors and an FIR was filed against the doctors under Sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 188 (disobedience) of the Indian Penal Code.