The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission on Wednesday asked AMRI Hospitals to return over Rs 2 lakh to the families of two patients who passed away at separate units of the group.
The complaints were related to overcharging.
The chairperson of the commission, retired judge Ashim Banerjee, said at a news conference on Wednesday that AMRI had not followed the rates for pathological tests mentioned in the panel’s advisory and not offered discounts on medicines and consumables.
The commission asked AMRI Salt Lake to return Rs 1,79,648 to the family of a woman who passed away with “post-Covid septic shock with multi-organ failure”.
The 74-year-old was admitted to the hospital on June 2. She passed away on July 1.
The hospital had billed the family Rs 15,11,913 for her treatment and did not offer any discount. “We saw the bill and found that the hospital did not offer discounts on medicines and consumables. Also it did not follow our advisory for pathological tests,” Banerjee said.
The commission had on July 3 fixed a limit on the rates that private hospitals could charge for a number of pathological and radiological tests.
The advisory has capped the chest X-ray PA rate at Rs 400 and the HRCT (128 slice CT scan) rate at Rs 5,200. Among pathological tests, the Procalcitonin test rate has been capped at Rs 4,000 and the IL-6 test rate at Rs 3,500.
Days after issuing the advisory, the commission clarified that the cappings would not apply to patients with medical insurance.
The commission had in August 2020 issued advisories asking private hospitals to offer at least 10 per cent discount on medicines and 20 per cent discount on consumables, such as gloves, PPE and masks.
The commission had also said that if hospitals were unable to offer any discount, it should allow a patient’s family to buy medicines and consumables from outside.
The order was for Covid patients but in December, patients with other illnesses were brought within its ambit.
On Wednesday, the commission asked AMRI Mukundapur to return Rs 40,110 to the family of an 89-year-old man who was admitted on April 27. The man had tested positive for Covid-19 and passed away on May 8.
The bill was over Rs 6 lakh, out of which Rs 84,720 was charged for investigations.
“The hospital did not follow our advisory on rates for pathological tests. Besides, the hospital had charged the patient separately for some routine tests despite charging Rs 13,000 per day as ICU bed charges,” Banerjee said.
Rupak Barua, the group CEO of AMRI Hospitals, said that of the seven complaints against them that were heard on Wednesday, four were dismissed.
“While the commission is merely performing its duties, in some cases it seems the complaints are being accep-ted in an arbitrary manner and even the most insignificant grievances are being given undue importance,” he said.
“For the fines imposed… we will look into the details and take action as necessary. While we expect the commission to be vigilant, we also hope it will be judicious in hearing cases, since some rulings come across as somewhat subjective.”