NPPA threatens legal action against 40 hospitals for not displaying knee implant prices

New Delhi: National drug pricing regulator NPPA has said 40 hospitals, including Medanta Medicity and Apollo Spectra in the national capital, will face action for not displaying prices of knee implants on their websites.

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) on its Twitter handle released a list naming 40 hospitals across the country that will face action.

"40 hospitals not displaying knee implant prices on their websites to face action", the regulator said in a tweet.

NPPA, however, did not elaborate on the action it has envisaged.

Hospitals that have been named in the list include Rockland Hospital (Delhi), Moolchand Medcity (Delhi), Apex Multi Speciality Hospital (Varanasi & Mumbai), Vijaya Hospitals (Chennai) and Sahara Hospital (Lucknow).

Besides some hospitals located in cities like Noida, Patna, Bhopal, Ahmedabad and Kanpur have also been named in the list.

The authority in a memorandum on August 18 had asked all manufacturers /importers and marketers and hospitals to comply with the notified ceiling price of orthopaedic knee implant system.

The government on August 16 fixed a price range for knee implants from Rs 54,000 to Rs 1.14 lakh, nearly 70 per cent lower than their earlier cost.

"After cardiac stents, we have now decided to bring all kinds of knee implants under price control. In our country 1.5 to 2 crore people suffer from knee problems, who need health assistance," Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ananth Kumar had said in a news briefing.

The minister had also warned of stringent action against hospitals, importers, retailers if they charged in excess of the MRP saying that the government would recover excess profit from such knee implants with 18 per cent interest and may also cancel licences of hospitals.

The government had in February slashed the maximum price of life-saving heart stents implants by up to 85 per cent by capping them at Rs 7,260 for bare metal ones and Rs 29,600 for drug eluting variety.

Earlier, the average maximum retail price (MRP) for BMS was Rs 45,000 and for DES, it was Rs 1.21 lakh.