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How your doctor and hospital may be cheating you

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Dinesh C Sharma
Dinesh C SharmaAug 01, 2017 | 14:39

How your doctor and hospital may be cheating you

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) – the trade union of allopathic doctors – has unleashed an advertising campaign, apparently in "pubic interest". In this campaign, the Association has listed its position on a number of issues like sex determination tests, medical negligence cases in consumer courts, pricing of diagnostic tests, etc.

The campaign seems to be in response to the one launched by Mumbai-based cardiac surgeon Ramakant Panda against the obnoxious practice of commission or cut taken by doctors. Simply put, it is the money paid by hospitals and diagnostic centres to the doctor for referring a case.

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Those hospitals indulging in this practice charge patients extra so that they can pay doctors who refer patients for them. Panda says the commission can be as high as 25 per cent and is leading to unnecessary procedures and overtreatment.

It's the first time a big name from inside the medical fraternity has acknowledged this practice and spoken against it. The hoardings, sponsored by Panda's hospital in Mumbai, have forced the state government in Maharashtra to set up a committee to examine the issue and suggest a law to ban the practice of institutionalised system of kickbacks in the healthcare industry. 

IMA is rattled by this development. If it's Maharashtra today, it could soon be the turn of other states and may snowball into a national movement.

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Instead of coming out clean on the issue and asking its members to shun kickbacks of any type, IMA is being defensive. One of the advertisements lists out over 30 types of fees which the association considers "not unethical". The list is exhaustive. In fact, IMA has justified the practice of cuts given for referrals by saying that "any referral, where some service is involved, is not fee splitting."

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According to the association, "doctors are entitled to charge for making a summary, coordinating with a consultant, accompanying a patient for a consultation, or coordinating for the final decision." In fact, the association wants family doctors to become agents of corporate hospitals. Family doctors, IMA says, "can become 'doctors on record' (like advocates on records) in corporate hospitals and admit a patient under their name and call consultants as seniors for advice."

Clearly, the attempt is to further institutionalise and strengthen the kickback system. In the past two decades, an unholy nexus has developed between politicians who own medical colleges, medical lobbies, and private healthcare industry.

This combination has successfully stalled every attempt to regulate private health industry such as the Clinical Establishments Act and to free the Medical Council of India from vested interests. With the new thinking in the government about handing over parts of public health system to the private sector, the stand taken by the IMA shouldn't be taken lightly.

Without necessary safeguards, a transition to a health system led by the private sector, with a leadership akin to that of IMA, will be a prescription for disaster for poor patients.

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(Courtesy of Mail Today.)

Last updated: March 22, 2018 | 15:24
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