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Gujarat FDCA detects 79 cases of ceiling price violation of cardiac stents since price cap notification last year
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Shardul Nautiyal, Mumbai
January 25 , 2018
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The Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) has detected 79
cases of cardiac stent price violation since National Pharmaceutical
Pricing Authority (NPPA)'s price cap notification of February 14, 2017
which stipulated prices of coronary stents at Rs. 7,260 for bare metal ones and Rs. 29,600 for drug eluting variety.
The cases were detected across 65 cardiac care centres across the state and Rs.
55 lakh of overcharged amount was recovered from around nine hospitals
for non-compliance to ceiling price norms on cardiac stents. Most of
these hospitals, where such cases have been detected, are private and
corporate hospitals.
Gujarat FDCA's inspections aimed at
checking whether hospitals and cardiac centres across the state are
complying to ceiling price norms stipulated as per the order so that
patients are not overcharged.
“Gujarat FDCA has a team of
dedicated officials who conduct inspections for ceiling price violation
on a regular basis and has recently achieved very high compliance level
as has been officially acknowleged by NPPA Chairman towards implementing
the notification. We have a team of Deputy Commissioner (Price Control)
assisted by a team of drug inspectors who work independently to
implement the compliance strategy,” informed Gujarat FDCA Commissioner
Dr H G Koshia.
NPPA in a recent letter to all the state drug
controllers has clearly spelt out the guidelines to ensure better
oversight, transparency in compliance and proper billing of the
angioplasty procedure at the point of care.
NPPA guidelines says
that price of the coronary stent has to be separately specified in the
hospital bill among other major things like type of stent, brand name of
stent, name of the manufacturer or importer, batch number, expiry date
so that patients are not fleeced. The hospital is also supposed to
display price list of the coronary stent in a conspicuous manner in its
premises so that notified price is duly implemented and also the
hospital’s website should clearly display the price list so that benefit
of low cost stent is passed on to the customer.
Government after
a series of meetings with the National Health Systems Resource Centre
(NHSRC) and cardiologists in 2015 came out with the conclusion that all
cardiac stents are of the same quality and accordingly capped the price
as per Schedule 1 of Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) after incorporating
in the national list of essential medicines.
NPPA has directed
hospitals/nursing homes/clinics utilizing coronary stents shall
specifically and separately mention the cost of the coronary stent along
with its brand name, name of the manufacturer/importer/batch number.
and other details, if any, in their billing to the patients or their
representatives.
Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
recently in its verification reports have ascertained that no hospital
in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik were found violating the ceiling prices for
cardiac stents as stipulated by the drug pricing regulator NPPA.
The
state regulator had stepped up its vigilance as a part of its larger
plan to detect overpricing of stents in government and private hospitals
subsequent to NPPA receiving complaints about stents being sold at
higher prices at KEM Hospital, Lilavati Hospital and a few hospitals in
Pune and Nashik.
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