Diagnostic centres and hospitals with pathological laboratories cannot refuse to hand test results to a patient citing non-payment by a company whose vouchers the patient has sought to redeem to pay for the tests, the chairperson of the West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission said on Monday.
A man had approached the commission with a complaint against a diagnostic centre in northeast Kolkata’s Lake Town that did not hand the patient test reports because the insurance company whose voucher the patient had submitted to undergo the tests was apparently yet to pay the centre.
According to the complaint, the man received a voucher of Rs 3,000 as a gift for purchasing a health insurance policy from a private insurance company. The centre in Lake Town was one of the places where this voucher could be redeemed.
The man underwent some pathological and radiological tests at the Lake Town centre against the voucher.
Later, the centre refused to hand over the test results, forcing the man to approach police and the commission.
The diagnostic centre’s representatives cited different reasons to the police and the commission for not handing the reports, said retired justice Ashim Banerjee, chairperson of the commission.
“The diagnostic centre in Lake Town told the police that they did not hand over the test results to the patient party because they had not received payment from the insurance company that issued the voucher. On Monday, they told us during a hearing that they will hand over the report to the insurance company since they were being paid by the company,” Banerjee said.
But the commission refused to buy the centre’s argument and directed it to give the test results to the man.
“We have asked them to immediately email the reports to the patient. No diagnostic centre or hospital can hold back test results from a patient citing non-payment by an insurance company or because the company had not yet paid the amount mentioned in the voucher. They can only refuse to give the test results if the patient did not pay the charges,” said Banerjee.
In this instance, he said, the patient gave the centre a voucher that the centre accepted. Later, when the diagnostic centre apparently did not receive the payment from the insurance company that issued the voucher, it refused to hand the test results to the patient, he said.
Banerjee told a news conference that all hospitals and diagnostic centres should refrain from such action. “This order is applicable to all diagnostic centres and hospitals conducting diagnostic tests,” he said.
The director of a diagnostic centre chain said it was becoming increasingly common for patients or their families to submit vouchers for tests, instead of paying for the tests.
