Uttar Pradesh puts cap on Covid-19 treatment in private hospitals

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday issued a price-list for treatment of Covid-19 patients in private hospitals amid complaints that many of them were charging arbitrarily.
The government also stated that 20% beds in select private hospitals will be reserved for government employees, including officers and Ayushman Bharat card holders.

For operative purposes, the order has divided UP cities into three categories and provided rates for Category A cities. The order mentions that cost in B category cities will be 80% of the treatment cost in Category-A cities and 60% in Category C cities.
Private hospitals with NABH accreditation in category A can charge Rs 10,000 per isolation from patients suffering with moderate degree of illness. A cost of Rs 15,000 has been fixed for an ICU bed and Rs 18,000 per day from patients needing ventilator support.
7 hospitals have been approved by government to provide Covid-19 treatment
The cost of non-NABH hospitals in category A cities will be Rs 8,000 for isolation beds, Rs 13,000 for ICU and Rs 15,000 for ICU with ventilator support. The rates are inclusive of the cost of PPE kits.
The government also stated that 20% beds in select private hospitals will be reserved for government employees, including officers and Ayushman Bharat card holders. The cost of treatment in this category will be reimbursed by the government as per CGHS and Ayushman Bharat rates.
The category A districts include Gautam Budh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Bareilly, Gorakhpur and Meerut. Districts on category B list are: Moradabad, Aligarh, Jhanasi, Saharanpur, Mathura, Rampur, Mirzapur, Shahjahanpur, Ayodhya, Firozabad, Muzaffarnagar and Farrukhabad. The remaining districts will fall under the category C.
At present, seven hospitals in Ghaziabad and five hospitals in Gautam Budh Nagar have been approved by the state government to provide Covid treatment. The decision to identify and list private hospitals for coronavirus treatment has been left to districts.
Passing government orders, additional chief secretary health and family welfare Amit Mohan Prasad said, “it has come to the notice that different private hospitals were levying different rates for the treatment of patients suffering with covid-19 pandemic. It is important to have uniformity in the cost of treatment for coronavirus in larger public interest.”
Stating that the committee led by Dr Vinod Paul, member Niti Aayog, had fixed the rate of Covid-19 treatment for New Delhi, the order fixed rates for UP.
Senior government officials said that the committee was formed after the Supreme Court asked the government to identify private hospitals, especially those that received land at a concessional rate from the government, which could treat Covid-19 patients either free or for nominal fees.
The order followed a public interest litigation taken up by a three judge bench comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde on May 28. The PIL had sought a cost related regulation for treatment of covid-19 in private hospitals.
Thereafter, the Union home department formed a panel led by NITI Aayog member Vinod Paul to fix rates.