Telangana Government to ensure refund of excess medical fees to Covid patients

Hyderabad: In compliance with the recent High Court orders, the Telangana Government has initiated action to refund of excess medical fees to corona patients from the corporate hospitals which have fleeced the victims during the treatment period. State Medical and Health Department has already asked 23 'erring ' hospital managements to repay nearly Rs 64 lakhs.

State Health Secretary SAM Rizvi instructed DMHOs ( District Medical Health Officers) to take necessary action against the hospitals which exploited the corona patients and ensure the repayment of the amount instantly.

In Warangal, one corporate hospital already repaid the excess medical fee amount collected from the patient. The cancellation of the license to the particular hospital was revoked after the payment on Wednesday.

The districts medical authorities in Khammam were also on the job to collect excess fee amount from 10 hospitals which have been found to have violated the norms in providing corona treatment and collected huge medical fee.

Orders would be issued to impose a penalty against the corporate hospitals in Hyderabad in a day or two, officials said the management have already been asked to pay compensation to the victim families who shelled out lakhs of rupees to the hospitals for treatment but failed to save their kin in the pandemic time. "

Once the hospitals settled payment dispute with the patients, they will be permitted to resume corona treatment ", officials said.

In May last week, the state government served show-cause notices on 64 hospitals on different grounds including excess charges and mismanagement of the covid treatment. Many of the hospitals responded to the notices and actions was already initiated recently.