The state health regulatory commission on Friday clarified that its advisory to private hospitals on offering discounts on the maximum retail price of medicines and consumables would only be applicable to Covid-19 patients without any medical insurance policy.

The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission had earlier fixed at least 10 per cent discount on medicines and 20 per cent on consumables for Covid-19 patients who would buy those from the hospital’s pharmacy.

After a meeting with representatives of the Association of Hospitals of Eastern India (AHEI), retired judge Ashim Kumar Banerjee, the chairperson of the commission, said the advisory on the discount would not be applicable to patients with personal or corporate medical insurance.

“They (private hospitals) raised issues about the 10 per cent discount on medicines and 20 per cent on consumables, because they have issues about corporate and insurance patients. We clarified that for corporate and insurance clients this advisory will not be applicable,” Banerjee said on Friday.

“For some medicines they said discounts are not available (from pharmaceutical companies). We told them to inform us about these on a case-to-case basis and we will speak to the manufacturers.”

Later, officials of some private hospitals and insurance companies said patients with insurance policies were given a 5-10 per cent discount on their bills during discharge.

“We have tie-ups with hospitals by which 5-10 per cent discounts are given on the final bill of a patient admitted with cashless facility. The non-admissible amount is calculated separately,” said an official of an insurance company. The CEO of a private hospital said such discounts were allowed as part of the agreement.

Last Saturday, the commission had asked private hospitals to offer Covid-19 patients discounts on the MRP of medicines and consumables to lessen the bill burden. If hospitals are unable to offer a discount, they should allow a patient’s family to buy medicines and consumables from outside.

At Friday’s meeting, private hospitals pleaded for withdrawal of the advisory that bed charges be capped at the rates prevailing on March 1. “We had said the bed rates of March 1 will prevail. They said the financial year in a corporate hospital starts on April 1 and they revised the bed charges that day. So they are finding it difficult to return to the earlier bed charges…. We told them that the March 1 date was fixed keeping in mind the non-Covid period charges and requested them to wait for some time till we get out of this pandemic situation. After that we will definitely reconsider this,” said Banerjee.

Sources said the hospitals had been asked to charge the old rates till December.

“We had a fruitful meeting on Friday. Since this was the first meeting between the AHEI and the commission, we presented our concerns before him (the chairman) and he gave us a patient hearing. He clarified that the discount is only for cash patients,” said Rupak Barua, president, AHEI and Group CEO, AMRI Hospitals.

“In regard to bed charges, he urged us to continue with it (the March 1 rates) till December 31, after which the commission will reconsider.”