New Delhi: A General Body Meeting of the Hospitals and Clinical Establishments Board, National Medical Forum was held at 72 Ansari Road , Daryaganj . It was also attended by all the representative organization like DMA ,Nursing Home Forum , Association of Healthcare providers India (AHPI) ,Voluntary Hospitals Forum and Others.
It was unanimously released that the charges for consultation provided by the CGHS and other empanelled organizations is extremely low, not compatible to the amount of responsibility being carried out by the physician in writing the prescription. Rupees 300 as a indoor consultation and rupees 150 as a outdoor consultation are an insult to the professionals who are accepting this meager amount.
The schemes of Pradhan Mantri Jain Arogya Yojana and Delhi Arogya Kosh call for a further discount of 20% on these rates,
“ Currently, with the going rates of the scheme, patients pay the auto-wala more money, when they come to see a doctor than the doctor himself. With Rs 150 per consultation and that too delayed payments under the CGHS scheme, many disgruntled super-specialists are refusing to see patients. Ultimately, patients service is getting hampered, ” said Dr Prem Aggarwal, President National Medical Forum
It was also echoed unanimously that these charges were on a tender based system and the last tender which was opened in 2016 . The tender charges rupees 150 and rupees 300 were lowest for the General practitioner which are also being thrusted upon the specialist and super specialist.
With such charges being fixed, many hospitals and doctors are refusing to provide services to patients which are hampering the effectivity of the schemes and ultimate losers are the patients who are devoid of treatment.
It was unanimously decided upon that the minimum charges for the consultation for a doctor having MBBS qualification should be rupees 500 and for MD/DNB qualification should be rupees 750 and for DM/MCH/DNB super specialty should be rupees 1000.
These charges are applicable to all consultation involving any empanelment done in future or even otherwise.
It is also being resolved that all the constituent members of the fraternity shall follow the above said minimum consultation fee and anything less than that shall be considered as charity.
“90 percent of the practitioners, when encountering a poor patient indulge in charity and give free consultation/take less rates. But that discretion should be with the doctor not with the government to fix insulting fee to doctors under their schemes and expect them to comply forever.” Dr Aggarwal added
Call Charity as Charity– It was decided that doctors taking less rates may continue to do so, and for the same a physician shall inform in a term of display board of Charity outside their consultation chambers.
