Telangana government on Monday issued orders announcing the maximum rates chargeable by private hospitals and labs for COVID-19 treatment and tests. The charges for treatment range from ₹4,000 to ₹9,000 depending on the ward and necessity of ventilator support.

The maximum charges for RT-PCR test to detect coronavirus conducted at private labs have been set at ₹2,200. The government order indicates that permission has been granted for collection of samples at home which could cost ₹2,800.

Special Chief Secretary of the State Health and Family Welfare department A. Santhi Kumari directed the private facilities to display the charges at prominent places of their premises.

However, the overall charges could shoot up beyond the stipulated tariff — the government order states that the maximum rates exclude charges for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits, high-end investigations such as CT-Scan, MRI, and charges for COVID-19 testing.

Some of the services included in the maximum rates are monitoring and investigations such as bed charges, consultations, serum creatinine, ECG, 2D Echo, consultation, Hbs Ag, and procedures such as Rylestube insertion and urinary tract catheterisation.

Ms. Santhi Kumari has also directed the private establishments to send COVID-19 patients for home isolation or isolation at COVID care centres if the patient is asymptomatic or has mild symptoms.

The private hospitals and laboratories have to inform the State Health authorities when a positive case is detected as well as the case details so that contact tracing can be taken up when a patient is admitted to hospital. She added that non-compliance to the orders shall attract action as per provisions of law.