Covid-19: Panels to investigate plaints of hefty bills

With the fourth wave of Covid-19 in Delhi abating, district administrations have started investigating complaints of overcharging by hospitals during the pandemic and will take action as per law against establishments found guilty of charging more than the capped rates, said senior government officials on Saturday.

Government records seen by HT show so far, there have been at least 76 complaints of hospitals overcharging patients for Covid-19 treatment. Only about eight of these complaints have been disposed of till now. Explaining the slow rate of case disposal, district magistrate of central Delhi Akriti Sagar said each complaint is being investigated by a dedicated district-level committee, which is meeting at least once a week and conducting hearings. “All matters are currently under consideration, so we cannot comment on any case as such,” she said.

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According to data seen by HT, maximum complaints (18) came from the northwest district, followed by the southeast district (11) and the south district (10).

Dr. Nutan Mundeja, director general of health services (Delhi), through an order dated June 15, directed that district-level committees be constituted to check overcharging by hospitals administering Covid-19 treatment. The order stated that each such committee will have an additional district magistrate or sub-divisional magistrate as its chairperson. Among the four other members will be a specialist (medicine) from a Delhi government office, a medical officer and a pharmacist from the CDMO’s office, and an accounts functionary.

Ankita Chakravarty, DM (south), said in case a hospital is found overcharging after investigation, the DMs, after approval, have to initiate action as per the provisions of Clause 18 of the Delhi Epidemic Diseases, Covid-19 regulations, Section 188 of the IPC and other applicable laws.

On June 20 last year, the Delhi government had reduced Covid-19 treatment charges by 60-67%.

Malini Aisola, co-convener of All India Drug Action Network, an outfit that has helped several patients file such complaints in Delhi, said, “Overcharging was the norm rather than the exception. The government order states that the capped rates must be applicable to 60% of the beds reserved for Covid-19, but if you actually see, a minuscule percentage of the people, probably 5%, must have been charged the government rates. The government dashboard did not give any breakup of the number of beds available as per the capped prices and otherwise. Most people were also unaware that there was a price capping in place,” she said.

Dr Girdhar Gyani, director general of Association of Healthcare Providers (India), said, “The order initially issued by the government was not clear on who will enforce it. We want representatives from bodies like IMA to be a part of the committee. Also, as per initial discussions, the capping wasn’t supposed to be applicable on insured patients. The pre-negotiated payments coming in from insurance companies were to cross-subsidise the other cases, but the insurance providers were only paying the government rates and hospitals had to charge the difference.”