As several surveys and anecdotal information have revealed, one health emergency can wipe off lifetime savings and even push the family into deep indebtedness. With more and more people from the middle class have been seeking private healthcare, arbitrary pricing has come up as a major concern. It is in this context that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare has stepped in to address this issue by recommending regulation of pricing of services offered by private hospitals so that hospital bills are somewhat predictable and bring in some consistency.
One of the highly variable items is the hospital room rent, especially in fancy, “luxury” hospitals in metropolitan areas. That is one of the reasons why health insurance companies have a clause limiting it to a certain per cent of the sum insured. Even after having health insurance policy, families end up coughing up huge sums of money towards room rent. Thus, the committee has recommended capping of hospital room rents, benchmarking it against the tariffs of a three-star hotel in the vicinity of the hospital.
The widening of gap between the cost of private and public healthcare is alarming, to put it mildly. The committee has cited the National Sample Survey which showed that private healthcare is almost 10 times more expensive than government healthcare.
It is important to understand the reality. The quality of treatment offered by doctors and the success rate or clinical outcomes in government hospitals for many types of cases will be on par with the private hospitals. But the overcrowding, the wait time, the generally below par hygiene in wards and rooms, retail corruption, and the attitude of some staff members in a majority of government hospitals drive patients to private hospitals even if they have to pay through their nose.
Hence, government hospitals, like government schools, are for the poor as if they do not deserve better facilities, and even low-income families are increasingly seeking private schools and hospitals. Of course, in both, there are exceptions in the form of subsidised and high quality and much sought after elite government institutions.
While everyone bemoans the aggressive commercialisation of healthcare and the emergence of five-star hospitals, nobody wants to improve the non-medical aspects of government hospitals. The quick fix solution, which is sure to grab headlines, is regulating the rate card of private hospitals. Many have mooted the idea of standardising the cost of essential treatments, diagnostic tests on which doctors are increasingly relying for screening patients and diagnosing illness, and, of course, room rent, in order to curb arbitrary fleecing of patients.
The private healthcare sector has so far been successful in resisting any standardisation of rates. Like in the past, the private and corporate hospitals are going to lobby against the Standing Committee’s recommendation. Their argument, which is somewhat justified, is that their high prices are due to massive investments in building infrastructure, spending on acquiring advanced medical equipment, attractive pay checks given to doctors, and the overall overheads relating to superior patient care. And their target patient base are people who can afford the premium prices for high-end, luxurious service and care. The least the private sector could do is to ensure that their charges are proportionate to service offered and their billing system more transparent.