Centre to cap medical procedure costs

The Union health ministry is planning to define the range of rates that a clinical establishment can charge for different conditions and procedures.
The plan is to cap healthcare expenses by defining the upper and lower limits of what can be charged by hospitals for procedures and treatment. Subsequently, these rates will have to be displayed by the hospital at a conspicuous place.
The new rules are likely to be notified this week by the ministry, which will make it mandatory for every clinical establishment to go for “provisional voluntary registration” to start with. The new rules also call for the establishment of a registration authority at the district level for the provisional registration.
The government will then come out with the “minimum standards” that hospitals will have to adhere to.
There will be 25-30 categories set, depending on the manpower, available faculty and bed strength of a clinical establishment. The National Council of Clinical Establishments is already working on these standards.
To bring down unnecessary treatment and investigations, there will also be standard guidelines for various conditions.
“About 20 experts have been working on these guidelines and we are halfway through,” said a senior health ministry official.
Once these standards are in place, every clinical establishment will be told to adhere to them, followed by permanent registration. “Eventually the idea is to make sure that public healthcare is rationalised and standardised so that affordable healthcare is available to the people as there will be a cap on healthcare expenses,” added the official.
The government has also fixed fines for those establishments not adhering to the new rules.

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