Indian hospitals will have to show treatment costs

NEW DELHI: Indian health ministry said it was working on a plan to make it mandatory for all private hospitals in India to declare and display the treatment costs of different diseases, Indian daily newspaper said in a report.
According to the Times of India, Jagdish Prasad, director general of health services (DGHS), told that the ministry's plan would check over billing and bring in transparency in the healthcare sector.
"Our aim is to notify standard costs for various medical procedures such as angioplasty, coronary bypass surgery etc. We also plan to categorize hospitals based on quality of services offered and develop standard treatment costs for each category," DGHS Prasad said.
He said suggestions are being sought from all stakeholders, including the corporate-run hospitals, on how the new system can be rolled out.
"We will initially ask each hospital to give their treatment charges, which would help us slot these hospitals into categories," Prasad said. A standard guideline for treating conditions like heart attack, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis and cancer, is also on the anvil, the senior ministry official said. (Monitoring Desk)