PUNE: The district health department has reduced a whopping total of Rs 17.8 crore after auditing Covid-19 treatment bills till September 22.
The authorities said more than 22,000 bills issued by private medical facilities were checked for fairness in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporation limits, as well as the rural areas.
Interestingly, the highest number of hospital bills probed — more than 13,000 — were from the rural areas of the district.
PCMC limits accounted for the highest reduction of final bill amount after more than Rs7 crore was adjusted.
In Pune Municipal Corporation limits, 2,776 bills were audited — the lowest among the district’s three administrative units — which saw a reduction of Rs 6.21 crore.
“We are probing all medical bills associated with Covid-19 from private hospitals and managed to reduce the maximum amount payable by patients. The pre-auditing practice, as compared to the earlier Rs 1.50 lakh slab, has helped in reducing the highest number of bills,” PCMC additional commissioner Vikas Dhakane told TOI.
Earlier, only bills for more than Rs1.5 lakh were scrutinized.
The Pune rural pockets has been very active on bills’ inspection and auditing front and, according to district health officials, is continuing this practice despite the drop in the number of Covid cases.
Additional PCMC commissioner Abhay Tidke told TOI, “We have formed block-level teams – including officials from accounting department – across all 13 blocks. The bills, regardless of the amount, were checked for fairness. Many bills were reversed. In some cases, there were no changes at all.”
The bill-auditing practice started last year after several Covid-19 patients and their relatives raised complaints of exorbitant bills being issued by private hospitals across the district. The errant hospitals were then made to refund the after experts found merit in their complaints.
Officials said they found that the administrative charges and cost of personal protection equipment (PPE) kits levied by the hospitals to be exorbitant.
