Pvt hospitals body to issue advisory on uniform pricing for Covid vaccine

Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (PHANA) on Monday said it would soon issue an advisory to its members to have uniform charges for administering Covid vaccines.

A dose of Covishield costs Rs 600 for private hospitals, as per price fixed by the manufacturer Serum Institute of India, while a dose of Covaxin, manufactured by Bharat Biotech, costs Rs 1,200 for private facilities.

There is no uniformity in vaccine pricing for the private hospitals. While BGS Gleneagles Hospital charges Rs 1,250 for Covaxin, all branches of Manipal hospitals charge 1,350 for Covaxin. Apollo hospitals, on the other hand, charge Rs 850 for administering Covishield. The private hospitals charge anywhere between Rs 50 and Rs 300, as service charges, for administering vaccines.

BGS Gleneagles in a statement said, “Covaxin vax is currently being administered at Rs 1,250 at BGS Gleneagles Global Hospital for walk-in patients. At Rs 1,250, it remains amongst the lowest and in line with all the other private healthcare providers in India. The hospital is charging Rs 1,500 only when it administers the vaccine externally in corporate offices or apartment buildings which involves additional costs for travel of trained medical staff and vaccine logistics.”

Way back in January, when vaccines were still being procured by the government and given to private hospitals, the state government had urged private hospitals not to charge more than Rs 100 as service charge, said PHANA. No such advisory has been issued now when private hospitals are directly procuring from manufacturers.

Dr Prasanna HM, president, PHANA, said, “Except these three hospital groups, no other private hospital has managed to procure vaccines from the manufacturers. I will talk to the administrators of hospitals and we’ll give an advisory after arriving at a uniform service charge. An earlier guideline from the state government had asked not to charge more than Rs 100. The central government has been silent on the vaccine service charges. They have left it to the hospitals.”

Hospitals have to pay a huge amount upfront to procure vaccines from manufacturers, Prasanna said. “Covaxin is being sold by the manufacturer only in batches of 5,000 each. So, hospitals have to pay around Rs 60 lakh to buy and store it. So, even hospitals have operational costs. We cannot tell them to charge only Rs 100. These are the issues. We try to ensure uniformity.”

Manipal Hospitals said Rs 150 is the operational cost of the hospital. Apollo Hospitals did not respond to queries from DH.