Hospitals in Delhi NCR under lens for overcharging patients

After analysing the bills, it was found that doctors and hospitals have violated the MRP, drugs, devices and disposables used

National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), the drug pricing watchdog, has claimed that leading private hospitals in the Delhi NCR region have overcharged patients. After analysing the bills, it was found that doctors and hospitals have violated the MRP, drugs, devices and disposables used.

A post on the NPPA website mentions, “It is amply clear that for claiming higher margins, doctors-hospitals preferred prescribing and dispensing non-scheduled branded medicines of scheduled medicines.”

The NPPA noted that most drugs, devices and disposables were used and sold by the hospitals from their own in-house pharmacies and patients didn’t have the choice of buying them from outside where prices could be lower

“Institutional bulk purchase by private hospitals, which in most cases keep a pharmacy of its own, makes it easier for them to keep high profit margins and indulge into profiteering on drugs and devices even without need to violate the MRPs, which is already enough inflated,” the NPPA informed.

NPPA’s analysis on the four hospitals in Delhi NCR region indicated that they were effectively pushing the industry to print higher MRPs to get bulk supply orders from them.

The analysis further states, “This is a clear case of market distortion where manufacturers after accounting for their profits print inflated MRP to meet out the demands of a distorted trade channel without getting any benefits from the ‘artifical inflation’ patients have to incur huge out of pocket expenditure in hospitalisation.”

The NPPA also mentioned that major beneficiaries of profits were hospitals rather than drugs and devices manufacturers.

The matter came to light when NPPA received complaints of overpricing and inflated bills from relatives of deceased patients, who died from dengue and other ailments, which led to the analysis of the hospital bills. Patients from the four private hospitals had complained that the hospital bills were inflated three to four times. It said the hospitals involved had requested anonymity.