Private hospitals will have to display treatment costs

TNN

New Delhi, 08 October 2012: In a major move aimed at checking unnecessary medical tests and procedures, the health ministry on Sunday said it was working on a plan to make it mandatory for all private hospitals to declare and display the treatment costs of different diseases.

Jagdish Prasad, director general of health services (DGHS), told TOI that the ministry’s plan would check overbilling and 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," DGHS Prasad said.

He said suggestions are being sought from all stakeholders, including the corporate-run hospitals, on how the new system can be rolled out.

"We will initially ask each hospital to give their treatment charges, which would help us slot these hospitals into categories," Prasad said. A standard guideline for treating conditions like heart attack, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis  and cancer, is also on the anvil, the senior ministry official said.