AMN /New Delhi
India’s drugs and medicine price regulatory body, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) Thursday issued notice to 24 leading hospitals in the country including Lilawati Hospital, Mumbai, PGI Chandigarh and Metro Heart Institute in Faridabad for ‘overcharging’ to the patients for the coronary stents.
In the notice NPPA, that functions under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers, said the hospitals are directed to comply with the instructions and provide details of the bills to the patients “clearly mentioning the brand name” and other details.
All hospitals, nursing homes, clinics and cardiac centres have been directed to display on home page of their websites, the MRP or price of coronary stents at which they are charging/ billing the patients, along with brand name, specifications and names of manufacturing/marketing company, it said.
In a tweet, the NPPA said “Non-compliance of instructions by the hospitals may result into prosecution.”
The regulator also asked all manufacturers and marketers or importers of stents to display on the homepage of their websites the MRP of different brands.
The decision of NPPA comes close on the heels the government in a major relief to lakhs of cardiac patients, slashed prices of life-saving coronary stents by up to 85 per cent by capping them at Rs 7,260 for bare metal ones and Rs 29,600 for drug eluting variety.
NPPA said complaints of overcharging have been also received from Max Hospital, Saket, New Delhi, Metro Hospital, Sec – 15, Faridabad, St. Philomenas Hospital, Vivek Nagar, Bengaluru, Ram Murti Hospital, Bareilly, UP, Central Hospital & Research Centre, Faridabad, Oxygen Hospital, Rohtak, Bharat Heart Institute, Dehradun, Nidan Hospital, Sonipat, Six Sigma Medicare & Research Ltd, Nasik, Healing Touch Hospital, Ambala, King Edward Hospital, Mumbai, Anand Hosptial, Meerut Caurvey Hospital, Siddartha Layout, Musuru, Karntaka, Global Hospital, Link Road, Jalandhar Agarwal Nursing Home, Haryana, Allahabad Heart Centre, K.E.M Hospital, Mumbai, Sun Medical and research centre, Thrissur, Kerala.
Meanwhile, sources also said the Union health ministry will be meeting Chief Secretaries of states to sensitize them of the issue of overcharging for stents, and to keep a check on increase in cardiac procedure costs.
The government has also restricted the margins on stents for hospitals and distributors to curb profiteering, saying hospitals and distributors together have to share a portion of margin from the ceiling price of cardiac stents.