Does Indian Healthcare Need Technology-Enabled Cost Transparency? Building Trust for Patients, Visibility for TPAs and Better Data for Policymakers

A recent report by ETHealthworld has brought an important healthcare-system question back into focus.

The Centre has sought an NPPA report after the Maharashtra FDA flagged significant gaps between trade procurement prices and printed MRPs of hospital consumables. The survey cited examples including an IV infusion set procured at ₹11.05 with a printed MRP of ₹325 — a reported 2,841% gap.

This should not automatically become a debate about whether hospitals, manufacturers, distributors or TPAs are responsible.

The bigger question is: how transparent is the financial journey of a patient through the healthcare system?

Hospitals have genuine costs beyond procurement — emergency inventory, sterilisation, clinical and biomedical manpower, infrastructure, technology, traceability, expiry and obsolescence risks, compliance and 24×7 readiness. Hospital-industry representatives have also argued that the procurement price of a sophisticated medical technology cannot simply be equated with its cost of safe delivery to the patient.

At the same time, patients and payers need greater visibility into what they are paying for and why.

India already has a strong policy foundation for this thinking. NITI Aayog has previously recommended stronger costing systems, standardised claims and data reporting, and digital platforms capable of providing information on healthcare expenditure, utilisation, quality and outcomes. It also highlighted the potential of digital health infrastructure to improve transparency in pricing and accountability.

There is another important context: according to the National Health Accounts, out-of-pocket expenditure still accounted for 45.11% of India's current health expenditure in 2021–22. Private hospitals accounted for 26.96% of current health expenditure.

Perhaps, therefore, India needs to look beyond the conventional “price control vs. no price control” debate.

Could technology help create a more transparent financial layer around healthcare?

Imagine a system where hospital charges, consumables, package inclusions, insurer/TPA approvals and final bills can be digitally connected — generating useful information for the patient, the hospital, the payer and the regulator without forcing every stakeholder into the same pricing model.

For international health-tech, healthcare-fintech, hospital-management and insurance technology companies, this could represent an interesting India opportunity.

Rather than simply bringing an existing solution into India, there is scope to co-create models around India's scale, fragmented healthcare market and diverse payer ecosystem — combining hospital operations, claims intelligence, cost analytics and patient-facing transparency.

The objective should not be to make healthcare simply cheaper.

It should be to make the cost of care more understandable, traceable and data-driven — while preserving the economics required for hospitals to invest, innovate and expand.

• Trust for patients.
• Visibility for TPAs and insurers.
• Better data for policymakers.
• Sustainable economics for hospitals.

That may be the next layer of healthcare infrastructure India needs.

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