Now, you can compare hosp treatment rates in advance

CHENNAI: You get a second heart attack when you get the bill for the first, as goes an old joke in the medical industry.

Third Party Administrators ( TPAs) like Medi Assist and health-tech startups like Vistara Health are displaying what hospitals will charge for various procedures on websites, in a bid to ensure that patients and their families get to know the bill amount in advance and can prepare accordingly.

Patients get a fair idea of what the final bill would be from informations like rates of packages, room rent and surgeon's fee. You can also select the hospital in the same city and type of room. Chances are remote for the final bill to shoot beyond the estimate, barring some unforeseen complications.

Insurers like ICICI Lombard have started portals like HealthAdvisor.com, where one can compare best hospitals in India and make more informed decisions.

On HealthAdvisor.com, patient reviews and ratings of hospitals are displayed to help people get a clear picture on the work, ethics and functioning style of the healthcare provider.

And, using the rate card helped Rita Sridharan (28), who wanted to have a normal delivery with her preferred doctor at a premier hospital. She got to know about the exact amount - Rs 55,000 - for various charges. It also showed her that it would cost up to Rs 70,000 if she opted for a C-section in an urban location. Almost exact amounts are displayed for treatments ranging from stent implants to knee replacements as these players work closely with hospitals.

"When you make a booking on TripAdvisor or MakeMyTrip, you know exactly how much it is going to cost you for a vacation in Paris or Venice.Then why shouldn't you make healthcare decisions just as easily?" says Prashant Jhaveri, head, products and strategy, Medi Assist Healthcare Services.

"In case of travel, your costing depends on parameters you choose - destination, brand of hotel, room type and others. Similarly, healthcare tariffs are based on various parameters as well -procedure type, hospital, city, room type, etc. And, it is the prerogative of members to choose a network hospital that suits their requirements," he says.

With MediBuddy, members can search hospitals in their insurers' network. They can filter search by specialty, city, location. "They can also view credentials of doctors, room types and other facilities available at the hospital. When they plan an e-cashless hospitalization with us, they get full information of the estimated cost of treatments at their chosen hospitals. Additionally, we display exclusive tariffs contracted by us with the network hospital to help reduce overall cost for our members," says Jhaveri.

Such transparency helps bring down medical inflation to a certain extent. After the rates were displayed online, web aggregators found that, same hospitals had to charge the same rates for each procedure. Apart from differential pricing within the same group, differential pricing among corporate hospital chains is a reality.

"The customer has a wider choice as he is armed with more information on different hospitals. If someone wants cardiology treatment, he could opt for smaller hospitals if they have the expertise in niche areas. We get a lot of queries from medical tourists and such information would also help them as they would be even more in the dark on treatment costs, facilities compared to an Indian patient," says Ravina Jain, CEO, Vistara Health.

Medical tourists, in particular find services like web portal QHealth useful. "We display accreditation from National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers," says a QHealth executive.