iStockNew Delhi: Under the pricing protocol prescribed by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, certain healthcare services will get costlier.
Patients will have to shell out more for availing services such as dialysis, pacemaker implantation, as well as support devices in cancer and other treatments.
With all these services now being brought under the high-end ambit of tax, it has become clear that the union health ministry’s claim that life-saving drugs, healthcare services, and medical devices would continue to be tax-free under the GST was an eyewash.
The ministry has confirmed on its website that certain services would face increased taxation due to GST.
The service tax levied on dialysis units will now rise to 18 percent from 5 percent, while pacemakers will attract a tax ranging between 12-18 percent from the existing 5.5 percent tax. Support devices in orthopaedics and cancer treatments, that faced 5 percent tax, could be levied 12 percent and 7-12 percent, respectively.
Diagnostic kits, except for those used in the detection of Hepatitis and radiology machines, will come under the high-end ambit of 28 percent tax. Support devices for cancers except blood cancer will also face increased taxation of 12 percent under GST, the ministry informed.
The ministry had earlier claimed that healthcare devises such as pacemakers, that attracted only 5 percent tax under the old Central Sales Tax (CST) regime in Kerala, would be levied the same tax with the implementation of GST.
Now, with the levying of 12 percent or more GST on these devises, surgeries are going to get costlier.
Read more: GST in-depth | GST: A knot too hard to untie?
