No checkout on weekends

Vimhans told me that i cant discharge my patient from hospital on weekend as i am using insurance. Here are some of the reasons-

1. The person who deals with this does not come on weekends
2. Insurance company approval will not come on weekend as they are also off---TOTAL LIE

The billing staff was very rude when they understood that i wanted a discharge on Sunday. First they wont give the bill only. When i talked with Accounts head, he was initially even more rude, and when i went to his level and asked for bill, he instructed billing guys to give me the bill.

Then i faxed the bill and discharge summary to insurance for final approval. VImhans had a dysfunctional fax machine and it did not work, so got another fax number and got the approval. Approval was for full amount, however the billing guys insisted that there was a room rent cap of 2.5k and we need to pay up 21k more. When i questioned, again more rude behavior.

Then made the insurance delhi head talk with the Accounts head, and he convinced that insurance has given complete amount. Then i paid non medical expenses and discharged the patient.

So something which could have been done in few hrs with minimal effort, took whole day and lots of unpleasant verbal exchanges.

All in all,,,,avoid vimhans. Max and fortis are much better. Even apollo is better.

Indraprastha apollo hospitals

Apollo hospitals proudly claims itself to be an internationally accredited hospital and does not need an introduction to atleast the residents of Delhi. Recently and unfortunately i got to experience apollo first hand. Some of the observations which i can remember for now. I will update as and when i remember things.

• The most pathetic TPA Helpdesk(Insurance Desk) experience.-
  
• They will not bother to check your form for completeness before sending it to TPA.
• In my case they entered my wrong number in their excel. So once some clarifications request were raised by TPA for cashless experience, they tried the wrong number and then rested, did not bother to double check the number on the insurance form which i had provided to them.
• TPA helpdesk will not inform you about the approval, you need to repeatedly call them and ask. there phone is always busy and its an apollo extension.
• Incase some clarifications are asked by TPA then the helpdesk wont forward them to doc and get details, that job is of the patients attendant.
• All the departments work in absolute isolation, specially the billing, admission and TPA helpdesk. You need to run between them to get things moving.
• Untrained nurses-
  
• They have a nurses training center also there. Nurses get trained at your cost. The IV fluid got finished and the meter started howling, the nurse came in and did not know why the meter was howling and what to do--BASICS MISSING
• Nurses dont understand Hindi or English- Sometimes it feels you are banging head against a wall.
• Dirty public toilets - Except the attached room toilets rest are pathetic. They generally have a wet floor. Tissue is missing from the toilets. If there is choking in the WC it remains. I saw it continuously for 2 days.
• They do not think that Plastic glass dispensers are important with Drinking water dispensers. Either there is one glass from which you can wash and drink or even that is absent. I am also unsure about the filtration they do of the water.
• Trainee and careless docs- I told the doc about a lesion (chala) on the child's tongue, no medicine given. Only when i told it to another doc on the next day they prescribed a medicine. Result was that baby was not able to eat comfortably.
  
• Highly baby unfriendly hospital.
• Even after repeatedly asking them for a single room, was given a double bedded room on false assurance that single room will be given in few hours. Few hours were after 3 days and when the consultant refused to discharge the baby from ICU without a single room being made available.
• The feedback form was already filled in when given to me at the time of discharge.
• The dietary staff there think that frooti is fruit juice and nutritious diet for a baby.

Overall Apollo is highly avoidable. I had a very different and decent experience with Sitaram Bhartia (will write later about it). In Max atleast i found the staff responsive and phones reachable.