CHENNAI/BENGALURU: When Sanjay Nagral, a surgeon, tweeted that a Covid-19 patient was billed Rs 12 lakh for treatment in a private hospital, it raised eyebrows among insurers and agents. After all, how much insurance would the virus require?With private hospitals now offering coronavirus treatment, health insurance claims ranging from Rs 90,000 to Rs 6.5 lakh are trickling in. A clamour is already building up for ‘package rates’ to address concerns of inflated bills.“While hospitals are doing a commendable job, we also see some cases of enhanced stay, abuse of antibiotics and bundling of procedures,” said Dr S Prakash, MD of Star Health. Star Health has settled 41 claims till date with the highest amounting to Rs 6.5 lakh.Sources said the General Insurance Council (GIC) is seeking government intervention to define a treatment protocol, along with package rates, on the lines of what insurers pay for routine medical insurance claims. “With no surgical intervention, the protocol should be the same, unless there are other medical complications for the patient. One cannot pass off usage of 300 gloves or one PPE suit for one patient in a day,” an industry source said.Another chief of a non-life company pointed out that health insurance rates are regulated but healthcare rates are not. He said that after years of dealing with hospitals, insurers have negotiated rates for some procedures with hospitals that are part of their network. “In case it (the claim) is from a non-networked hospital, then during the time of reimbursement we might partially reject the claim if we feel the hospital was artificially inflating its rates,” he said.Hospitals say the approach to Covid-19 patients in terms of treatment is not different. “The drugs and treatment are similar to what we use in the case of other respiratory ailments. So the largest item being billed might be room rent and personal protective equipment (PPE) used by the hospital staff attending on the patient,” said Dr Manish Rai, head of Manipal Group Hospitals. “As for the use of a ventilator—that would be for a very few patients. We don’t have a sufficiently large database in the case of Covid-19 to say anything concrete,” he added.The pandemic claims are categorised under three categories—mild, moderate and severe—depending on infection levels. While the mild cases have seen hospitalisation of 5.5 days, the moderate last 7 days and the severe at least 11 days with a minimum two-day stay in the ICU. ICICI Lombard has also started to get Covid-19 claims. “The average size of the claim is Rs 5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh,” said Sanjay Datta, chief of underwriting, claims and reinsurance.With the government already capping rates for the virus testing at Rs 4,500, insurers are seeking intervention to set package rates. “These are early days. We will move towards standardisation as we go forward. We will take up the matter with the government through the General Insurance Council (a grouping of nearly 50 general and health insurance companies),” an official at a medical insurance company said.Girija Kumar, chairman, Oriental Insurance , feels that it is premature to talk about pricing. “There are not enough cases for us to come to any conclusions in this regard. At Oriental, we’ve received only 3 claims so far. Insurance claims are no indicator of the treatment costs for the 2,000-odd Covid-19 patients currently in India as the health insurance penetration in India is poor,” he says.