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Time of India
17-06-2025
- Health
- Time of India
90% plaints against private hosps this yr about billing
Kolkata: Around 90% of the 2,058 complaints against private hospitals, nursing homes and other clinical establishments—this works out to be nine out of 10 complaints—that reached the West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission this year till May pertain to billing issues. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now "Most of the complaints we received pertain to billing, making it important to make the billing system transparent. While our order was in the form of an advisory, the govt's move will make it a law," said WBCERC chairperson Ashim Kumar Banerjee. The advisory Banerjee mentioned was the one issued by the health panel in 2020, asking private facilities to set up display boards with details, such as package, rates for OPD, bed, doctor fees. The Bengal govt on Monday moved a bill in the state assembly, seeking to make it mandatory for private health facilities not to inflate their fixed treatment rates, including packages, with hidden charges. The bill says for treatment costs not covered under fixed rates, the patient party must be informed of the possible costs and any rise must be communicated within 24 hours. The bill mandates that the rates must be properly displayed at hospitals and on websites. While private hospitals appreciated the state decision to move to The West Bengal Clinical Establishments (Registration, Regulation and Transparency) (Amendment) Bill 2025, they said they hoped it would be practical. "This is a good move by the govt as there needs to be some form of regulation, especially in the billing part so that hidden charges are not extracted from patients," said Peerless Hospital CEO Sudipta Mitra. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Most private hospitals in Kolkata have boards displaying charges on certain packages, bed charges, doctor fees, OPD rates. But hospitals pointed out it was not possible to display all the charges, especially those of tests, that numbered beyond 2,000. "Due to these billing disputes, the public has a negative idea about private hospitals. We are yet to know the nitty-gritty of this move, but such a step towards making transparent billing is welcome," said Subhashis Datta, GM (operations), Ruby General Hospital. In the bill, the state has also tried to address the inordinate delay in issuing or renewing licences to private hospitals, proposing to cap it at 90 days. "We don't want private facilities to suffer for the want of licence renewal unnecessarily. If they don't get a renewed licence from the department within 90 days, it can be extended for 90 more days. This is a temporary measure. We have brought an amendment with more stringent measures, under which the govt will ensure the licence application will be disposed of within the period," said Chandrima Bhattacharya, junior health minister.
Time of India
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
OBC block cleared, revised lists out
Kolkata: The state govt has published the revised OBC lists in a gazette notification, clearing the legal bottlenecks for the school and college admission process. Jadavpur University arts faculty admission committee held a meeting on Friday, where it was decided that the admission process would begin on Wednesday. "The notification will be published on Tuesday, and students can start applying to arts courses from Wednesday until July 2. All arts departments, except philosophy, sociology, and Sanskrit, will conduct admission tests between July 14 and 18. Admissions will be around the first week of Aug, and classes will start either in the second or third week of Aug," said a teacher. JU was scheduled to start its admission process on May 19 but kept its UG admission in abeyance until further notice due to an OBC reservation-related dispute. A member of the arts faculty admission committee said, "The OBC-related complication has been sorted as the gazette notification has been published. So, we decided to open our portal and start admission for arts subjects." JU doesn't fall under the centralized admission portal and conducts its own admission test. Sources said the science faculty might hold their admission committee meeting on Monday to decide on the UG admission to science subjects. Calcutta University, however, is yet to take a call. CU registrar Debasis Das said, "We are still waiting for final approval from the BCW to start the admission procedure for our in-house courses. The admission procedure for our affiliated colleges will be through the centralised portal." Ex-Judge Ashim Kumar Banerjee, state commission for backward classes chairperson, said, "Our job is to identify communities and recommend their reservations under OBC category for mainstreaming." Follow more information on Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad here . Get real-time live updates on rescue operations and check full list of passengers onboard AI 171 .
