Many private hospitals in Calcutta said on Monday the number of Covid-19 patients in their satellite units was going down because of several reasons, including reluctance of some insurance companies to foot the entire bill.

Among other reasons are patients’ concern about medical facilities at satellite units and guidance offered by physicians on what to do when a Covid-19 patient is in home isolation.

Belle Vue Clinic has set up a 25-room satellite fac-ility at a hotel in Beckbagan. On Monday, the unit had only one occupant.

Medica Superspecialty Hospital has a satellite unit that can accommodate 52 Covid-19 patients, asymptomatic or with mild symptoms. On Monday, there was only one patient. The RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences has tied up with two hotels to accommodate 52 patients. There were only five on Monday.

“The number of occupants started dropping sharply over the last couple of weeks. We were having about 35 patients on an average daily earlier,” said R. Venkatesh, regional director, east, Narayana Health, which runs the RN Tagore hospital.

Belle Vue officials said their satellite unit would have 20 occupants till a couple of weeks back. Medica would have 40 patients staying at its facilities.

“We are spending about Rs 25 lakh a month to run the facilities, which include paying rent to the hotels and our overhead costs. We are keeping a watch on the situation and if the numbers don't increase, then we have to take a decision,” Medica chairman Alok Roy said.

The state government had on June 15 said private hospitals could set up “satellite facilities” for Covid-19 patients with no or mild symptoms to free up beds reserved for such cases. The health department had said in a guideline that private hospitals could set up “satellite facilities” or observation wards at hotels or guest houses in the vicinity of their campuses.

Initially, the number of occupants was less because the insurance companies were not paying for the stay. Later, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority allowed insurance coverage for patients staying in the units and the occupancy started rising, said hospital officials.

Sources said doctors individually or in groups had tied up with hotels and started satellite units hoping there would be a good number of patients.

But after a few weeks of good occupancy, the numbers started falling again. “The insurance companies are paying but only 60 to 70 per cent on an average of each bill. Sometimes, they are rejecting cashless claims saying these patients could have stayed in home isolation,” the CEO of a private hospital that runs a satellite unit said.

A 10-day stay for a Covid patient at a satellite unit costs between Rs 30,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh, depending on the type of hotel.

“Now, after several months into the pandemic, awareness has grown and people are feeling safer in home isolation. They don’t want to be at such units.

Besides, often doctors are not willing to leave hospital duty and go to these facilities,” said the CEO.

Homecare providers are advising asymptomatic patients or those with mild symptoms, boosting their confidence to stay in home isolation. Apollo Homecare used to have 100-odd patients to look after every day about a month back.

“The number is now 200. We are providing clinical as well as psychological counselling for people in home isolation. People feel assured,” said Souvik Bhattacharya, regional head of Apollo Healthcare, eastern India.

Doctors said technology was enabling people to prefer home isolation over the satellite facilities.

“Our team of doctors is doing video calls with the patients and they feel assured. They know that if their condition turns serious, we would advise them hospitalisation,” said physician Rahul Jain. “Besides, at many residential complexes, people are no longer objecting to their neighbours who are Covid-19 positive to stay home.”