Patient is Discharged on accepting a cheque and MD is deducting our salaries until the value of amount has been recovered as the issuer has cancelled the cheque later.

Dear Members,

It’s me Alumolu, working as a Manager in a hospital located in Andhra Pradesh,
I would like to bring here an issue to your notice for suggestions and guidance.
Two patients a male and female (Wife & Husband) were admitted in our hospital and got treated, female patient was recovered and discharged but the male patient was referred to Higher center, then their son came to hospital and said that I spoke to your Managing director and he told you MD accepted to take him away, but I denied to do so, I called to my MD but I’m unable to reach him. Then I requested him we can’t do so, and I asked him kindly do the payment. He has given a cheque I send the same to Accountant
On Account of this issue my MD intentionally switched off his mobile for this particular issue and he is only intimated to Accountant that I will be available on my brother’s mobile but not to disclose this to anyone, so the same is not revealed to anyone.
The patient went to another hospital and expired there.
Later on the patients son cancelled the cheque and send a false legal notice, then we approached an advocate he examined it and said that we can claim full amount because he accepted himself that “I have to give XX amount to you”.
Then the problem is with my MD, he is deducting our management and supervisors salaries until the value of amount has been recovered. We tried to clarify him what our advocate said but he denied giving our full pay.
Dear sir/ma’am please helps us to get out of this issue,

Dear Alumolu DP,

We, the members of this forum, are outsiders and do not know the internal dynamics of your company. However, the following observations or questions arise from your post:

a) It appears that the procedure for acceptance of the cheques from the patients or their kin has been finalized in your hospital. The realization of the cheque takes a few days. Under such circumstances, why did your hospital not create an SOP for cheque acceptance? For the cheque payment, you could have taken an undertaking from the patient that if the cheque bounces or for the issues arising out of non-realization of the cheque, his liability towards payment of the hospital charges remains as it is.

b) Secondly, it appears that your hospital relies on verbal communication. If some patient says that he/she has authorization from the MD to accept the cheque, you could have told him to bring a written authorization. It was the patient's duty to ensure that you received a call from the MD. The telephonic discussion should have been followed by written authorization from him. The incident highlights the importance of written communication in routine administration.

c) Notwithstanding point (b) above, when you had tried to contact your MD, his phone was not reachable. In such a case, why did nobody send him an email or a message through WhatsApp? A delay in obtaining the authorization could have frustrated the patient or his kin. Out of frustration, the patient might have spoken the truth.

d) When this incident was happening, your MD's phone was not reachable exactly at that time. Was it a deliberate attempt by the MD to remain incommunicado? Was your MD hand in glove with the patient or his kin?

e) Since the patient escaped without paying the hospital charges, why did your hospital not approach a lawyer? Why did the employees concerned approach a lawyer in their personal capacity? This is an official matter, and it should have been dealt with by the company's (hospital's) administration.

f) Now, this is about the recovery of the dues against the patient admitted. 100% recovery from the erring employee(s) is wrong. There are a good number of judgments by the courts of different levels. In fact, before initiating the process of recovery, your hospital should have ordered a domestic inquiry. Did the independent and impartial inquiry take place?

Learning from the Incident for HR Professionals: The incident highlights the importance of organizational communication. Organizational communication means creating means so that the parties concerned are informed proactively or the transfer of information takes place in a standardized manner. If the patient or his/her kin had been communicated well in advance on the means of accepting the payment, this problem would not have come. The quintessence of management science lies in showing the power of anticipation and preventing dissatisfaction or even disputes. Lessons of management science are taught to develop an ability to prevent problems rather than waste time in solving them!

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Dear Alumolu,

The present issue is with you to recover the amount from the person who received treatment. You should file an FIR against the person (issued cheque) under section 420 for cheating and dishonesty, with other criminal sections deemed appropriate. Another case should be filed against the patient for non-payment of hospital dues with interest for the recovery of dues.

The action of the MD is obviously to deduct the outstanding amount from the staff because the patient was discharged without the bill being paid, due to their fault. Though the action of your MD is justified, the action was too early as it could demoralize the staff. The MD should proactively support the staff in recovering the amount from the cheater. As per the posting, the actions of your MD and Accountant in this matter create suspicion.

The death of the patient does not validate non-payment of dues for their treatment.

Dear Colleague,

As rightly discussed by the other colleagues, challenges like non-payment, part payment, denial to pay, cheque bounce, cheque cancellation by the parties availed service but later due to some grievance canceling the cheque, etc., are common in the health care sector.

It seems that the organization has to strengthen its internal billing, collection, discharge procedures very meticulously with a robust system control, including good hospital billing software, etc. The organization (hospital) should have a sound legal process in place to recover and deal with such cases with good legal team support. Unless there is serious negligence on the part of the employees, and if there are intentional violations of laid down procedures, continued with a clear charge sheet, an inquiry to express the employees' side in the inquiry, the organization should not have proceeded for recovery of the amount from employees. If such abrupt decisions are taken and implemented, then every employee will be in panic, and employees will not work freely in a smooth flow of work. This will affect the reputation and systems of the hospital badly.

In the instant case, the hospital should proceed to legal action for collecting the money from the parties concerned with reasonable discounts if any allowable to the family. This is a clear matter to be dealt with legally by the organization.

The deduction from employees should be the last resort where no recovery is possible provided it is proved that there is a serious lapse of duties and procedures for the employees. Only all the employees meet the MD and jointly represent your case to the management clearly. There are legal ways also to contest, but it might affect the employment of the concerned, and after that, the life of employees in the organization may be made difficult. Hence it has to be carefully discussed and resolved.

All the Best, God Bless, Dr. P. SIVAKUMAR Doctor Siva Global HR Tamil Nadu

I think the deduction from salary is illegal under the Payment of Wages Act and various other legislation. The recovery can only be done in cases where there was fraud on the part of the employees or deliberate violation of the company's procedures. In the latter case, deductions can only be made after a court order.

Given the background, this was deliberately done by the MD, so you have limited internal escalation options. You need to consult with an advocate and file a criminal/civil case against the hospital and the MD. Please note that this can be an expensive process unless you have local NGOs, unions, etc., supporting you.

In the meantime, a better option is to start looking for another job.

Dear colleague,

In my view, the MD in this case is the root cause of the issues. If there was really some such discussion between him and the patient's son as claimed by him, it was the duty of the MD to ensure that all concerned are informed about it. By not acting proactively, the MD's irresponsible behavior has triggered chain actions and reactions from the staff, resulting in monetary losses. The monetary loss suffered by the hospital should be recovered from the MD's salary and not from the staff.

Before taking punitive action of deductions from staff salaries, they ought to have been given an opportunity to explain, which is an unacceptable lapse.

The concerned Manager has also faulted by not ascertaining by any means from the MD the alleged talk before discharging. Besides, the patient should not have been discharged before the cheque was realized.

Largely, the MD and partly some staff have messed up this matter. But, at any rate, the action of staff salary deductions, the manner in which it is done, is unjustified and illegal.

Staff should escalate this matter by suitable verbal or written representation. Suitable legal action deserves to be taken against the truant son of the patient for cheque cancellation.

Regards,

Vinayak Nagarkar
HR and Employee Relations Consultant

The above discussions overlook the relevance of the provisions of the Negotiable Instruments Act in the given context. It is not understood how the patient's son had 'cancelled' the cheque. It may be that he would have instructed the Bank to stop payment. Still then, the accountant should have presented the cheque, and if the cheque was not honored, the Management could have initiated criminal action under the provisions of Section 138 of the NI Act.

Obviously, the fault lies with the accounting system being followed by the Hospital.