Private Hospitals can't charge patients for beds twice like hotels: WBCERC

West Bengal: The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission has issued fresh directives to all the private healthcare facilities instructing them not to collect bed charges from a patient twice within 24 hours. This came after the regulatory body received complaints from patients alleging that the hospitals are charging them twice a day.

According to the Millennium Post, the hospitals were charging the patients according to their 'check out timing', if a patient takes admission to a hospital in the middle of the night and eventually gets released or passes away before 24 hours from the time of admission, the authorities ask them to pay the bed charges twice.

Finding it extremely unethical, the commission stated that hospitals should not act as hotels and the facilities must not charge the patient according to their check-in or check-out timing like a hotel. Hence the commission has instructed the facilities to take bed charges only after 24 hours of the patient's arrival.

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