BHOPAL : Health department to list online cost of services for private nursing homes

BHOPAL: Under digital India week celebrations, Madhya Pradesh health department plans to put out a comprehensive list of cost of services, procedures and surgeons that could come in handy for patients from being fleeced by private nursing homes.

This would help patients to be aware about cost of treatment and prevent private nursing homes from charging exorbitant rates for services and will bring about uniformity in tariff and transparency.

Scheme has already been part implemented through state government’s portal ‘mponline’. “Currently only limited information about private nursing homes has been uploaded. Shortly, we intend to provide comprehensive information about treatment and other charges for each of the registered nursing homes in state,” said director health in charge hospital maintenance, Dr KK Thassu.

“As per nursing home act rules, rate list of charges should be displayed in all hospitals. However, rarely any of the hospitals adhere to the rules. If the government follows through on its decision it would a welcome change,” said physician Dr Rajiv Singh.

Health department officials are also upbeat on making their new Health Management Information System (HMIS). “Through HMIS we are in the process of integrating all government run primary, secondary and civil hospitals. It is a huge undertaking and awaits a clearance from the state government,” said Dr Thassu.

Despite an HMIS, state government is not keen on introducing online appointment booking facility in primary and tertiary hospitals. Only recently AIIMS New Delhi introduced appointment booking through its website - patients.aiims.edu and the website is maintained by National Informatics Centre (NIC).