How Can Govt Fix Uniform Rates for Procedures in Private Hospitals? Supreme Court asks Centre
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has asked the Central Government how it could fix uniform rates in private hospitals across the country when market forces should ideally drive such matters.
Such observations were made by the Supreme Court bench of Justices BR Gavau and Sandeep Mehta while considering the plea by All India Ophthalmological Society, which challenged the government regulations on uniform rates for ophthalmological procedures across India.
Issuing notice to the Government, the Apex Court bench asked "How can there be uniform rates even in private hospitals? It all depends on market forces. What if there was uniform fees for lawyers appearing here?"
Filing the plea, the petitioner association argued that the rates for procedures conducted by the specialists could not be the same in metropolitan cities and small remote villages.
Earlier, the top court bench had issued only a limited notice to the Attorney General and listed the matter for further consideration on April 17. Back then, Justice Dhulia had remarked, "But can you challenge a policy like this? You see, for example health care rates in northeast are very affordable and it will get affected."
The matter was tagged on Monday with an already pending case seeking directions to the Union Government to notify hospital treatment rates in line with rules under the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010.
Earlier, the counsel for one of the parties, Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave had said that the rules were "completely out of hand". Attorney General for India R Venkataramani represented the Union Government and Senior Advocate Maninder Singh represented the Indian Medical Association (IMA). Further, Senior Advocate Harish Salve appeared on behalf of a group of private hospitals.
As per the latest media report by Bar and Bench, earlier this month, while hearing a similar matter, a co-ordinate Bench had lamented how private hospitals set up on lands purchased at subsidised rates were renting on their commitment to reserve some of their beds for the poor.
Back then, the top court bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Prasanna B Varale had remarked, "All these private hospitals they say, when getting subsidised land, that they will reserve at least 25 per cent beds for Economically Weaker Sections but it never happens. We have seen it many times."
Meanwhile, earlier this year, the Supreme Court had slammed the Union Government for its failure to fix a range of rates of services at private healthcare facilities.
Even though Rule 9 of the Clinical Establishment (Central Government) Rules, 2012 mandates that the Government shall determine the rate of fee chargeable from the patients at private hospitals and clinical establishments, it has not been enforced till now.
Issuing directions to the Union Health Secretary to hold a meeting with the State Counterparts and come up with a concrete proposal before the next date of hearing, the Supreme Court bench had warned that if the Government fails to comply with the directions, the Court would consider issuing CGHS rates instead.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that concerned with the Supreme Court's directions to the Union Health Ministry to specify a range of rates for availing services at private hospitals and clinical establishments, the private hospitals had opined that the move would be "catastrophic" for the industry and would also affect the quality of healthcare.
The Association of Healthcare Providers (AHPI) had decided to take up the issue and concerns of the healthcare industry before the Supreme Court bench.
