Indian Medical Association Tamil Nadu’s Nursing Home Board (IMA-NHB), which recently conducted a study on hospital costing has stated that sustainability of small and medium hospitals are at stake in the State due to competition from big and corporate hospitals.

Due to the competition, smaller and medium hospitals are forced to undercut on their charges for regular patients, private insurance companies etc., which is not a healthy sign for such hospitals, it said.

“Undercutting the charges will push the institution to debt-trap in long run, the reason why many small and medium hospitals get closed in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu,” said A.K. Ravikumar, chairman of IMA Hospital Costing Committee and IMA-NHB, Tamil Nadu.

According to Dr. Ravikumar, the study was conducted to make the public and others know the actual cost incurred in providing quality health care as per the Government fixed standards.

The study was done based on standards laid down by the Government for a hospital as covered in Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, Indian Public Health Standards: Guidelines for Sub-District/Sub-Divisional hospitals, Minimum Wages Act and others.

As per the results of the costing study, a 50-bedded hospital with 50% occupancy should charge ₹2,036 as general ward bed charges per day, ₹2,212 as employee cost, ₹246 as equipment charge, including maintenance charge, ₹1702 as administrative charges, ₹2,876 as ICU bed charge, and ₹4,267 as ICU equipment charge. This works out to ₹6,196 a day for a general ward bed, and ₹11,057 a day for an ICU without special equipment charges.

Dr. Ravikumar said that most of the smaller and medium hospitals charge lesser than what the study showed.