All medical tests below ₹500 to be free at AIIMS

Patients visiting city’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) will not have to pay for blood tests, X-rays, ultrasound scans and similar diagnostic procedures in the coming days.

The country’s premier staterun institute, which caters to patients from Delhi and across the country, also plans to do away with admission and out-patient registration charge. “We realised that charges for several tests and procedures at AIIMS were minimal and generated nominal revenue. So, we have proposed to remove user charges for any test or procedure costing less than ~500,” director Randeep Guleria told HT on Tuesday.

AIIMS has capped at ~500 the fee for several tests that cost 10 times more in a private lab or hospital. All such tests will be free once the decision is implemented, which is expected to kick within a few weeks.

Around 10,000 people visit the out-patient department every day and at any given time, more than 2,000 patients are admitted to the hospital. The hospital earns ~101 crore annually from registration charges, admission fee and diagnostics tests.

Collecting these charges, which are highly subsidised, cost the hospital “significantly more” than the revenue generated, officials in the AIIMS’s finance department said.

CONTINUED ON P 6 Most blood and urine tests Head and neck CT

X-rays, depending on the body parts

Ultrasound – routine and doppler