The Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) has detected 79 cases of cardiac stent price violation since National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA)'s price cap notification of February 14, 2017 which stipulated prices of coronary stents at Rs. 7,260 for bare metal ones and Rs. 29,600 for drug eluting variety.

The cases were detected across 65 cardiac care centres across the state and Rs. 55 lakh of overcharged amount was recovered from around nine hospitals for non-compliance to ceiling price norms on cardiac stents.  Most of these hospitals, where such cases have been detected, are private and corporate hospitals.

Gujarat FDCA's inspections aimed at checking whether hospitals and cardiac centres across the state are complying to ceiling price norms stipulated as per the order so that patients are not overcharged.

“Gujarat FDCA has a team of dedicated officials who conduct inspections for ceiling price violation on a regular basis and has recently achieved very high compliance level as has been officially acknowleged by NPPA Chairman towards implementing the notification. We have a team of Deputy Commissioner (Price Control) assisted by a team of drug inspectors who work independently to implement the compliance strategy,” informed Gujarat FDCA Commissioner Dr H G Koshia.

NPPA in a recent letter to all the state drug controllers has clearly spelt out the guidelines to ensure better oversight, transparency in compliance and proper billing of the angioplasty procedure at the point of care.

NPPA guidelines says that price of the coronary stent has to be separately specified in the hospital bill among other major things like type of stent, brand name of stent, name of the manufacturer or importer, batch number, expiry date so that patients are not fleeced. The hospital is also supposed to display price list of the coronary stent in a conspicuous manner in its premises so that notified price is duly implemented and also the hospital’s website should clearly display the price list so that benefit of low cost stent is passed on to the customer.

Government after a series of meetings with the National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC) and cardiologists in 2015 came out with the conclusion that all cardiac stents are of the same quality and accordingly capped the price as per Schedule 1 of Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) after incorporating in the national list of essential medicines.

NPPA has directed hospitals/nursing homes/clinics utilizing coronary stents shall specifically and separately mention the cost of the coronary stent along with its brand name, name of the manufacturer/importer/batch number. and other details, if any, in their billing to the patients or their representatives.

Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently in its verification reports have ascertained that no hospital in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik were found violating the ceiling prices for cardiac stents as stipulated by the drug pricing regulator NPPA.

The state regulator had stepped up its vigilance as a part of its larger plan to detect overpricing of stents in government and private hospitals subsequent to NPPA receiving complaints about stents being sold at higher prices at KEM Hospital, Lilavati Hospital and a few hospitals in Pune and Nashik.