By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 4 May: Employees State Insurance Directorate has removed the names of 10 Hospitals in Uttarakhand from the list of authorised hospitals for ESI patients over charges of irregularities in treatment of patients under the ESI scheme. These hospitals include two from Dehradun too. They are Medicare Hospital, Chakrata Road and Krishna Medical Centre at Inder Road in Dehradun. In addition, two are from Haridwar namely Metro Hospital and Heart Care Centre and Rankers Hospital while one is from Roorkee. There are also several hospitals from district Udham Singh Nagar and one from Nainital in the list. These medical institutions have been accused of committing irregularities in medical reimbursement claims/bills while treating the patients.
Director of Employees’ State Insurance Scheme, Deepti Singh today issued an order, suspending these ten hospitals from the list of hospitals authorised to treat patients under ESI. According to the Directorate, these hospitals were committing fraud. It may be recalled that secondary level medical facilities are provided to the insured and their dependents covered under the Directorate of Employees’ State Insurance Scheme, Labour Medical Services, Uttarakhand. For the purpose of providing medical care, some private medical institutions have been contracted under the cashless scheme under the prescribed terms and conditions.
A review of the bills submitted by these hospitals on the UTI portal for the Financial Year 2023-24 has revealed that the treatment expenditure being claimed these hospitals were much higher than the normal expenses being charged by other hospitals for similar treatment.
Regarding the above mentioned private medical institutions, after due consideration, it has been decided that the said medical institutions are suspended from the list of authorised hospitals with immediate effect till further orders. Also, the said medical institutions have also been directed to present their arguments in this regard to the Directorate within a period of one month.
The order issued also clarifies that the treatment of admitted patients already receiving medical treatment in the stated medical institutions will continue to be treated there till further orders.
