Taking cue from airline and hotel industry, doctors set to introduce dynamic pricing for OPD consultation.

Mumbai: In a bold decision which might disrupt healthcare industry globally, the Quack Doctors Association of India (QDAI) announced today that, similar to the dynamic pricing of airline tickets, hotel bookings and cab aggregator platforms, the OPD consultation charges of doctors will also be made dynamic soon.

Starting 1st April’ 2024, OPD consultation charges will be an outcome of a multitude of factors, such as the number of questions of patients based on their Google search, the % mortality of their Google diagnosis, the number of pages of reports with irrelevant graphs brought to OPD at the time of consultation, the total number of doubts of patients clarified like questions about Eosinophil report marked in bold on the CBC when most doctors don’t even know the interpretation beyond Hb-WBC-Platelets, the total number of bills found in the patient file before finding the relevant medical record, etc.

In an exclusive interview with us, Dr. Kabhi Mat’bann, the current president of QDAI said, “Dynamic Pricing is the inevitable future of traditional retail, and our association’s decision to charge OPD consultation as per dynamic pricing is a welcome move. Apart from better time management per patient, it will help doctors increase their patient OPD footfalls by offering discounted costs. The strategy will also benefit patients, as doctors will be able to offer affordable charges. For example, our decision to implement Rs. 100 per page of laboratory or radiology report is a nominal fee, and patients will think twice before bringing pages full of irrelevant reports including hormone levels, when only CBC-Creatinine-Electrolytes were prescribed”.

Speculations have emerged that the OPD consultation charges are set to surge significantly after the decision is implemented, and might lead to patients going back to consulting neighbors, relatives and street magicians for home remedies.