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Written By: Editorial Team | Updated : October 8, 2012 2:17 PM IST
Soon private hospitals will have to declare and display the cost of various treatments. The health ministry on Sunday said that this exercise will check unnecessary medical tests and procedures, and will bring in transparency in the healthcare sector.
'Our aim is to notify standard costs for various medical procedures such as angioplasty, coronary bypass surgery etc. We also plan to categorize hospitals based on quality of services offered and develop standard treatment costs for each category,' Jagdish Prasad, director general of health services (DGHS), said. 'Hospitals will not be able to charge above the prices mentioned. We are also grading hospitals under this law so that patients know what kind of services will be available,' he said.
The ministry of health is seeking suggestions on efficiently rolling out the new system from all stakeholders, including the corporate-run hospitals.
'We will initially ask each hospital to give their treatment charges, which would help us slot these hospitals into categories,' Prasad added. A standard guideline for treating conditions like heart attack, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis and cancer will be introduced under the Clinical Establishment (Registration and Regulation) Act 2010.
According to the DGHS patient treatment cannot be considered as a clinical trial. 'Stem cell therapy is being offered for spine injuries by many hospitals and patients are charged for that despite being the fact that there's no proven effect of the therapy. This can only be stopped through patient awareness and strict monitoring by government agencies,' Prasad said.
'Unwarranted procedures and diagnostic tests put extra financial burden on the healthcare system and cause increased morbidity and mortality. For example, a person suffering from muscular chest pain does not require angiography. Still, many hospitals routinely put such patients through this procedure,' Dr Kameshwar Prasad, head of the clinical epidemiology unit of AIIMS, said.
AIIMS is has taken up a global initiative to promote evidence-based healthcare. 'Awareness of the latest evidence-based treatments is necessary. However, treatment costs should also be borne in mind by doctors while suggesting procedures for patients,' Dr R C Deka Deka, institute director, said. She also pointed that immunity against many antibiotics, a problem that was likely to become serious in the future, is on the rise due to over-prescription.
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