This is a real story of one of my esteemed friend:
My dad suffers from COPD (chronic lungs failure) probably due to smoking during his younger days.
Invariably every month he gets admitted to hospital for 3-5 days, when he suffers from congestion and breathlessness. In the hospital they give him oxygen, nebulization (bronchodilators) and some antibiotic to prevent any infection.
I admitted him thrice to Manipal. First time in Jan 2007, I did it by cash payment and the bill was 9000 for 5 days.
Second time in Dec 2007, I used the TTK “cashless” method and the bill was 21000 for 5 days.
Third time Feb 2008 I again used TTK “cashless” and the bill is 30000 for 4 days.
For all the above cases, symptoms/ailment/treatment was exactly same but the cost was ever increasing. The hospital guys keep asking the same question many times “Does your insurance have enough limit?”
Most probably TTK will get this today’s bill of 30K, approved. The hospital gains, TTK also gains, Insurance Co. loses money and we end up paying more premium. It increased by almost 4-5K since last year, because TTK said that claims have been increasing in our company.
BTW its not just Manipal hospital, The “shitty” nursing home where my dad gets regularly admitted in Kolkata, also tripled their bill amount after they learned that we have insurance.
Ankur Aggarwal
sree
Sandip Chaudhuri
vbr
Skabeesh
shobhendrasrivastava
