NASHIK: The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) has started to act against those private hospitals which are charging excessively from Covid19 patients. It has again issued notices to 22 private hospitals which failed to submit the bills they charged from Corona patients. NMC has warned to cancel the registration of hospitals if the bills are not submitted within the next three days.
The NMC has now started an administrative audit of the Corona victims. It has also launched a probe into allegations of financial loot of patients by private hospitals. During the Corona period, the government had directed to reserve 80 per cent of beds in private hospitals for Corona patients and had announced the government rates for the treatment of patients. The private hospitals opposed the rates as they were less than the rates charged by the private hospitals.
The NMC has received complaints that some hospitals have shown the less number of patients and charged excessive bills from patients. In this connection, the audit department of NMC had issued notices to 53 private hospitals including two big corporate hospitals in the city. The NMC had issued a notice instructing to submit the bills of all patients admitted for treatment in the hospital from March to May and a list of day-to-day admissions and discharge of patients.
Accordingly, 31 private hospitals submitted their information. However, 22 private hospitals refused to submit the bills. Therefore, the NMC is preparing to take action against these private hospitals. As a part of the same, the audit department of NMC has again issued notices to 22 private hospitals and warned them to cancel their registration if they do not submit the bills and related documents within three days.
The NMC has started verifying the bills charged by the private hospitals from the patients admitted from March to May. It has issued a notice to those hospitals to refund the excess amount to the concerned patients as there are many serious issues involved in it and to give clarification.
Complaints mentioning that some private hospitals charged excessively from patients. Accordingly, notices have been issued to some hospitals. Their registration will be cancelled if they fail to submit bills. – B J Sonakamble, chief auditor, NMC
