Uniform rates at Mumbai hospitals now

Nearly 1,500 small and medium hospitals in the city and Thane are all set to charge same rates for treatment.

The Association of Medical Consultants of Mumbai has reached at a consensus on the uniform charges in the hospitals in all zones of Mumbai.

The association, which has finalised the rates after taking the opinion of its 5,230 members, has informed this to Paramount Healthcare Ltd, the nodal third-party administrator for health insurance for the Western region of the country.

The standardisation move by the association is at a time when the state government is proposing a regulation for hospitals following pressure from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority to ward off rate discrepancies in medial insurance claims.

Lalit Kapoor, managing trustee, AMC, said the association said the decision was taken voluntarily. "It has been in discussion among the members for long as the patients as well as the insurance companies are very often confused because of the different rates in hospitals," he added.

As per the standardisation, the hospitals are classified into two classes, namely primary nursing homes and secondary hospitals. Since the big corporate hospitals are not members of AMC, they are not included in the ambit of the uniform charge.

According to this, the hospital charges, which include bed charges, doctors visiting charges, emergency and surgical cost and surgery charges etc, have been fixed on a consolidated basis.

In addition, the association has also fixed the rates for different categories of surgeries and also the approximate length of hospital stay.

As per the decision, the bed charges in a primary nursing home is fixed at Rs 400-600 for the general ward and doctor's visit charge has been fixed at Rs 500. In a secondary hospital it will be Rs 550 to Rs 700 and Rs 600, respectively.