- This topic has 21 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 5 months ago by
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UFertility treatment has become a major buisness in India. More and more couples are being pushed towards treatments like IVF costing lakhs. A quick analysis of a popular doctor aggregator platform shows that a majority of doctors displayed as fertility specialists do not have any specialization in reproductive medicine although this is required under the ART act. What are the regulations that govern such aggregators and the information that they provide to gullable consumers? What are the legal and regulatory courses to ensure that information provided is correct?
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SOB in OBG deals with Fertility
Fertility treatment is highly regulated
OBG is the only field where there are more govt branches involved and more licences required than other specialities
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UObGyns are generalists in fertility treatment. Fertility today is a super speciality with FnB in Reproductive Medicine, MCh and other fellowships. Infact the ART act requires people to have a MCh or FnB as a degree post MS obgyn. It just like you can’t call everyone with a MD medicine as a cardiologist or neurologist……there is government recognized super speciality training. Aggregators show doctors as per such training by stating the person as a super specialist or a generalist with specific intrest.
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UI agree, many doctors are today doing experiments and nothing else to push towards IVF packages. Suffered personally from the unexplained meds and wife had a painful miscarriage after the doc extracted close to 60k from us within 1.5 months and kept selling meds from her clinic after luring us via her front at apollo. Driven by greed majority of them are, though there are sm good genuine and kind ones too, but they are rare and the greedy ones make a killing catching those in want of quick results.
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AThere are here to make money…All fertility clinics are operating like assembly lines where they have rate cards to the extent of **first try, second try & third try** with upfront payment. Moreover imagine the harm it does to the women’s body, i feel it is similar to birth rape. Even if a couple wants to conceive through a donor sperm they still try and push for IVF as the profits are higher.
**People who cannot conceive a child should seriously consider adoption OR live childless**.
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UI believe that a large part of the issue is in having money minded ill trained people holding up the flag. Seeking medical care for a medical condition is everyone’s right. Aggregators are the primary source of advertising and information to public online. Hence my question on who regulates aggregators to ensure that the right information is given?
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UCompletely wrong
We went through IVF and it is the greatest blessing as a technology though it is expensive, painful and has no guarantee
Besides the kids are great and also a blessing
If doctors are greedy don’t blame the tool
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UYes…..and the right of a consumer to get correct information to make a decision can go take a hike!
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UStudy health economics please
Buying biscuit packet and buying healthcare are different
The best we can do for planned healthcare is check reputation
For unplanned healthcare we get insurance
You can’t control rain , get a good umbrella and plan your trip 😁🙏
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UOk…I will bite. I agree that buying healthcare vs a packet of biscuts is different. The dimensions on the healthcare economics front also include information imbalance (misinformation is a strong marketing tool) and media/marketing purchasing power with larger hospitals. How is one to check reputation? Reviews that can be falsified or brought? Do you expect some level of credibility check on if a doctor is specialised or not? Is this not the responsibility of an aggregator? Can a platform claim that a doc is a specialist when he or she is not? If you advertised that drink xyz makes you grow tall…..it’s false advertising but claiming to be a specialist when one is not is ok?
PS: Furthermore on healthcare economics……. good luck finding insurance cover for fertility issues. It’s not covered in 99.9% cases….. Out of pocket expenses for families……driving marital discord, abandonment of women and financial ruin in India.
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UCan you give any examples where you can prove its a trend? Just making such blanket statements is meaningless. The average age of childbearing has drastically increased and the success rate for these techniques have also improved, so it is very normal that there are more IVFs happening these days compared to 20 years ago for eg.
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UTake practo as an example, search for infertility specialist. You would be lucky if one or two in the top 10 docs listed even have a fellowship in reproductive medicine or infertility. If you look at their reviews you will see that most of their practice is as obgyn generalists and rarely as fertility specialists. So the first set of docs that the platform exposes as specialists are truly not specialists! Docs with speciality training appear only randomly. For a patient who knows no better what is shown is what they believe. On the other hand, search for a cardiologist or a diabetes specialist, the platform tells you the difference between who is a generalist with special intrest and who is a specialist. This is misrepresentation to the consumer at the end of the day.
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U>Take practo as an example
Why though? No good doctors is on any app. Only new and struggling docs generally go on these apps. You initial criteria itself is wrong. Besides what your describing is an app problem, not a doctor problem. If this is the basis of your rant, then speak to the app developer, don’t blame doctors.
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UThe question was never about doctors but about regulations against aggregators for misrepresentation to consumers
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UYou start by talking about fertility treatment and patients being put at risk which are both medication related points? Just look at your title and first part of your post. You are pretty much blaming doctors. Its only after that that you talk about aggregators.
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MI personally went through IVF. Although it takes a toll physically and mentally, and we had to go through multiple attempts, we couldn’t be happier.
The doctor was good but I deep dived in the whole process myself. What medicines he gave out for what purpose. I researched the hell out of internet and forums and talked to multiple people who went through the process.
The first step is to avoid shady clinics. And stop going to doctors who don’t explain what they are doing. They can only suggest that you need a ivf, if you want a donor sperm IUI, they can’t say no to you. Although you would have to understand which case is applicable in yours.
As per rate card is concerned, at the end of the day the clinics and hospitals are vying for more customers and promotion is a thing. Heck, even we went to different clinics and hospitals to enquire the price. Even checked the prices in different cities. Its an expensive procedure so customers will be looking to save a few bucks where they can.
It was a frustrating experience while we underwent the process, but the joy we have when we see our little one is unmatched to anything else. So, I would say I am pretty satisfied with the whole thing.
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