The Bengal Assembly on Tuesday amended the Clinical Establishment Act with the aim to bring in more transparency in billing by private hospitals and also making it mandatory for hospitals to display the package rates on their premises as well as on their website.

The new amendments also make it mandatory for the private hospitals to inform a patient’s family about estimates of treatments that do not have fixed rates.

The West Bengal Clinical Establishments (Registration, Regulation and Transparency) (Amendment) Bill, 2025, was tabled in the Assembly on Monday. It was passed on Tuesday. “Every clinical establishment shall strictly follow the fixed rates and charges.... It shall ensure that intensive care, ventilation, implants, consultation and similar tests and procedures, and any additional treatment or procedure shall not attract additional charges over and above such fixed rates and charges including
the package rates,” the bill read.

The Telegraph has a copy of the bill.

Rupak Barua, the president of Association of Hospitals of Eastern India, welcomes the amendments. “This will force hospitals to be more transparent in their billing. Any review of a patient should be done in a scientific manner,” he said.