Calls to reduce price of test kit get louder

Calls to reduce price of test kit get louder

Rema.Nagarajan@timesgroup.com

With many states managing to bring down the cost of RTPCR tests for Covid-19 to half the ₹4,500 ceiling fixed by Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), the cries to revise the price have become louder.

The fact that some private labs are offering package deals of 50 or more tests, including the Covid-19 test, for just ₹5,000 has buttressed the argument that the ICMR cap may be too generous.

In many states, as the number of Covid-19 tests being done in private labs has gone up, governments have announced reimbursement rate they pay private labs for samples sent to them. It ranges from as little as ₹2,000 in Gujarat to ₹3,500 in Haryana.

Can’t test for free, have salaries to pay & cost of kits to bear: Pvt labs

However, for those getting tested in hospitals and for those paying for the test themselves in a lab, the cost is ₹4,500, the ceiling fixed by the ICMR.

The central government health scheme (CGHS) and a similar scheme for the Delhi government employees also continue to observe the ₹4,500 price ceiling.

Though the ICMR had appealed to private labs to test for free when announcing the price ceiling and giving approval to private labs to do Covid-19 tests, not surprisingly there haven’t been any takers for that appeal. Private labs argue that with salaries to pay and costs of kits and reagents to bear, they couldn’t possible do it for free.

A leading player in the diagnostics market, Thyrocare, has been advertising packages such as Safe Surgery Profile, Safe Pregnancy Profile, Safe IVF Profile and Safe Dialysis Profile, each of which claims to do between 50 and 53 tests, including the RT-PCR test for Covid-19, for just ₹4,999. Interestingly, during the debate on pricing when labs were criticised for charging the full ceiling price, Thyrocare had put out detailed calculations in the public domain which showed that the actual cost of the RT-PCR test would be ₹5,000. They claimed that even at ₹4,500, they would not be covering the full cost of doing the test.

“If what Thyrocare says is true, how do they manage to do 51 tests including RT-PCR Covid-test for ₹4,999? Are they saying that the cost of 50 tests is just ₹500?” asked Dr Rohit Jain of Pathologists Society.

“These 50 tests alone would cost ₹1,500-₹2,000 according to several pre-surgery packages advertised by various labs. This is a clear indication that the RT-PCR test does not cost even ₹4,500 as claimed by these labs. It probably costs around ₹2,500 or less, which is the reimbursement rate fixed by some state governments and even at that rate labs make profits,” pointed out Dr Jain.

The fact that labs are willing to do the tests at the rates fixed by state governments, some as low as ₹2,000, suggests his reasoning is sound.

“The reimbursement rates fixed by states demonstrate that the ICMR price cap is significantly inflated,” said Malini Aisola of All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN).