NPPA heat on hospitals for failing to provide stent details

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has said hospitals not providing details of the brand of stents they are selling patients would be prosecuted under the provisions of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955.

The drug price regulator also said hospitals not providing these details could be accused of distorting evidence deliberately.

On February 13, NPPA fixed the ceiling price of drug-eluting stents at Rs 30,000 and of bare metal ones at Rs 7,500. In 2016, 600,000 stents were used in the country, over 90 per cent of which were drug-eluting and priced between Rs 24,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh then. NPPA had, in its order, asked hospitals to provide details of stents — metal or plastic tubes inserted into clogged arteries to keep them open — along with prices.

The regulator is now probing 24 hospitals, including Max Hospital in New Delhi and Lilavati in Mumbai, for allegedly overcharging patients for stents. In a recent tweet, NPPA said hospitals being probed had failed to provide details in the relevant format.

“Non-compliance shall now be treated as deliberated distortion of evidence along with charges of over pricing. Such cases may also be taken for prosecution under the EC (Essential Commodities) Act,” NPPA said.

“We have sent our response to the NPPA. We are quite confident that we will be able to demonstrate to the authorities that we have not overcharged the patient on the stent used and are compliant with the NPPA order fixing ceiling on the price of the coronary stents," said authorities at Max Healthcare.

Lilavati, however, did not respond to Business Standard's query.

NPPA began keeping an eye on hospitals after doctors complained that there was a shortage of high-end stents. It asked hospitals to raise their demand before accusing manufacturers of creating a shorting. It also asked manufacturers to monitor the availability of stents.

The Department of Pharmaceuticals has also invoked the Section 3(i) of the Drug Price Control Order 2013, making it compulsory for all stent manufacturers to submit a report to the pricing regulator every week.