BENGALURU: In yet another struggle between the government and private health establishments, the latter have alleged that delay in reimbursements for bills of government-referred Covid tests have hit them financially.On October 16, the state fixed the cost of an RT-PCR test at Rs 800 for government-referred samples and charges for transport of such samples to private labs at Rs 400.
The chief executive officer of a private lab in Bengaluru said they had not been reimbursed for four weeks. Also, the lab initially did pool testing, meaning five samples were tested in one go. If the result came back positive, the five samples were tested individually to ascertain which ones contained the virus. "For the repeat test, the government refused reimbursement and said the price they fixed was all inclusive. This is a huge loss for us," he said, adding that the reduction of test rates from Rs 2,250 to Rs 2,000 in July and then to Rs 800 had also affected their business.
The principal of private medical college said they too face a similar problem: "We have been actively involved in testing, but the government has not reciprocated for the past five months. The government owes us Rs 29,700 for RT-PCR tests but we have not received a single rupee. The situation is similar in several medical colleges in the city which were forced to set up Covid labs when the government made it mandatory."
He said they had spent Rs 1.5 crore to set up the lab. Reduction in test rates and delay in reimbursement had left them at a loss. Before rates were reduced, they made a profit of Rs 200-300 per sample, he said.
Managing Director of the National Health Mission Arundhati Chandrashekar said all reimbursements for labs in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike area would be done within a week and for other districts by the end of November. She said that earlier, districts made payments to labs directly with money sanctioned to them from the NHM, diaster management fund, and District Mineral Funds.
"Later, deputy commissioners told us that the funds had dried up, so we asked them to send the bills to us. For this, they need to certify which samples are government-referred and which are ones private, so that the correct ones are sent to the NHM for reimbursement. This is taking time," she said.Another reason for the delay was that the districts have to separate samples for which payment has already been made, from those which are yet to be paid for.