IAS, IPS teams get cracking, Bengaluru private hospital falls in line

Hospitals have been refusing treatment to patients despite a government order

ias-harsh-gupta-ips-roopa-bengaluru-hospital IAS officer Harsh Gupta and IGP D. Roopa during an inspection at a private hospital in Bengaluru | Sourced Image

When 63-year-old Lingaraj, a Covid-19 patient, was being treated at a private hospital in south Bengaluru, he had struggled to pay a deposit of Rs 50,000. He had accrued a bill of Rs 96,111 on the third day, when the newly-constituted hospital supervisory team headed by IAS officer Harsh Gupta and IPS officer D. Roopa Moudgil visited the hospital. The officers, who scrutinised the hospital bills, found several instances of excess billing, and reached out to the patients who had been overcharged, immediately instructing the hospital to refund the patients.

At least 22 Covid-19 patients have now got a refund amounting to a total of Rs 24 lakh from the private hospital, which has remitted the amount to their bank accounts. The entire treatment cost will now be borne by the state government under the Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust (insurance) scheme.

It may be recalled that the Karnataka government had directed the private hospitals to reserve 50 per cent of their hospital beds for Covid-19 cases referred by the state. However, hospitals have been defying the order and refusing treatment to patients. Several instances of hospitals indulging in excess billing have been reported even though the government has capped the prices for both Covid-19 testing (at Rs 2,000 for government referred patients; Rs 3,000 for others) and treatment. 

The state government has fixed the package rates for patients referred through SAST (insurance scheme) as Rs 5,200 for general ward, Rs 7,000 for high dependency unit (ward with oxygen), Rs 8,500 for isolation ICU without ventilator, and Rs 10,000 for isolation ICU with ventilator. For direct admissions (non-insurance) the rates are Rs. 10,000 for general ward, Rs. 12,000 for high-dependency unit, Rs. 15,000 for isolation ICU without ventilator, and Rs. 25,000 for isolation ICU with ventilator.

IGP Roopa feels the private hospitals are not informing patients that the treatment is free for patients referred by the BBMP.  As per the SOP, any person testing Covid-19 positive is given ICMR registration code or specimen referral form (SRF) number and sent for home isolation if they are asymptomatic. The symptomatic patients are sent to referral hospitals by the BBMP. However, many patients panic and choose to get admitted in private hospitals on their own. While the patients referred by the BBMP are treated free of cost under the government quota, the patients approaching the private hospitals are required to pay the rate fixed by the government. However, the excess billing is a menace for both categories of patients.

The team led by Roopa and Gupta, which has been assigned three hospitals—Rajeshwari Medical College, Mysore road, BGS hospital, Kengeri and Sparsh Super Specialty hospital in RR Nagar, is one of the seven special teams constituted by the state health department to supervise the private hospitals following complaints of them denying admission to Covid-19 patients referred by the government and also to self-reporting symptomatic patients.

The teams comprising an IAS officer, IPS officer, and two members from BWSSB or Bescom and a health department staff, will examine the bed availability, ensure that the hospitals update the dashboard to give real time bed availability and also monitor billing.

Another team headed by ADGP (KSRP) Alok Kumar and IAS officer Gaurav Gupta issued showcause notices to three other hospitals—Manipal Hospital, St Philomena and Chinmaya Mission Hospital for flouting the norms on bed allocation and billing.

The biggest hurdle in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic in Bengaluru has been lack of coordination between the government and the private health sector. Despite several warnings and showcause notices to private hospitals by the chief minister and other ministers, hospitals continue to deny admission citing shortage of ICU beds and are billing in excess of the prescribed amount, demanding a Covid negative certificate or huge amounts as deposit before commencing the treatment. The delay in treatment even as patients are being shunted from one hospital to another has resulted in deaths, too.

This time, the special team of senior bureaucrats is hoping to bring the state’s Covid-19 response back on track.

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