Notice seeking suggestions from private clinical

The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission has served a notice to private clinical establishments seeking their suggestions on the fixing of rates for treatment and other procedures.
It has also sought their suggestions for improving patient care services and redressal of grievance, the notice said.
"The West Bengal Clinical Establishments (Regulation, Registration and Transparency) Act 2017, empowers the panel to make regulation with regard to fixing of rates/charges for indoor and outdoor treatment, including diagnostics and also advise and make suggestions regarding measures to be adopted under this act for improving patient care services and grievance redress," the notice said.

"There is a huge discrepancy in charges for similar kind of services in different private corporate hospitals. Moreover, these hospitals are also having hidden costs for providing services to the patients. This cannot go on and the commission is responsible in making quality healthcare services affordable for everybody.
So to have an uniform rate for treatments and services we have sought suggestions from the private hospitals," a senior member of the Commission said.
While seeking suggestions from private hospitals, the Commission in its notice, has listed the charges for different types of treatment as well as surgeries, as per the state government's Swasthya Saathi Scheme.

"They (private hospitals) have been asked to send their suggestions to the commission by June 16. And after that we will deliberate and fix the rates for different services as per the grade of the hospital," the member said.
It was just a matter of time before the rates come under regulation, the member said.