Hospital Run Pharmacies Are Taxable Under GST

GST will be charged on any medical items bought by an outpatient through a pharmacy run by a hospital. They cannot be clubbed with the medical bill of other healthcare services provided by the hospital to exempt GST. 

Below-mentioned is all the details that you need to know about hospital run pharmacies and application of GST:

• An outpatient has a choice to follow or not follow the medical advice given by the doctor. No one (the hospital or the doctor) can force him to make a choice or influence his choice. Therefore, other than the doctor consultation, the medical care of the outpatient is outside the control of the doctor. The charges for the medical bill and doctor’s consultation will be billed separately. The outpatient can decide if he wants to buy the medicines from the hospital run pharmacy or from outside. Furthermore, the medical service to the outpatient by the hospital will be limited to the doctor’s consultation. The hospital cannot do anything beyond that. If the patient agrees to buy medicines from the hospital run pharmacy, the bill of it will be separate from the doctor consultation and other medical service bills. These should not be considered as a composite supply. It is to be noted that each service will be billed separately and hence GST will be applied to each.
• It is important that the entire treatment of an outpatient is document- his/her admission in the hospital, monitoring by the staff, doctor’s consultation, administration of a dosage of medication. The hospital will make a single invoice/bill for all the facilities/ services provided to the patient that will include room rent, nursing care charges, laboratory, consumables, medicines, equipment charges, doctor’s fee, etc. Therefore, in the case of an inpatient, all the medical services provided by the hospital will be bundled up together and will come under healthcare service.