Apollo Hospital in Chennai has some 5-6 braches in the city. I had both good and bad experiences with the hospital.
Bad Experience
Sometime back I took my mother, who is a heart patient to Apollo main hospital on greams road for regular check up.
Day 1 -
So, we got her registered at the reception counter, and went to cardiology department. We had to wait for about 2 hours for seeing the concerned doctor, after which we were told that the doctor had gone for an emergency case and would be available only the next day. So, we came back home and went there again on next day.
Day 2 -
This time the wait time was about 1.5 hours after which the doctor saw my mother. Without commenting anything on her health and without prescribing any medication, he asked us to do some X-rays, blood tests and urine tests. I had to stand in a long queue to pay in advance for all these tests, for half an hour. It took us a full day to do the tests and some of the test results were made available to us only on next day.
Day 3 -
So, on day 3 we went again to the hospital and met the doctor with all the test reports (this time the waiting time was about one hour). After seeing all the reports, without commenting anything on her health and without prescribing any medication, he asked us to see a kidney specialist in the same hospital mentioning that he has a doubt that she might be required to be operated for her kidney. So, we went on another floor to see the kidney doctor and were told that due to heavy crowd, we can see him only on next day.
Day 4 -
On day 4 we went there again to see the kidney specialist. The waiting time was two hours again, after which finally we could see the doctor. After examination, the doctor commented (atleast someone in this hospital commented:)) that there is nothing wrong with her kidney and she is perfectly alright. But he gave a long list of tests to be done once again (they have a standard format for the tests in which they can tick as many as they want, this doctor ticked all of them) and asked us to bring the test reports.
By this time, I had already spent Rs.15000, for all the tests and fees of the doctors without getting any medical advise or prescription of the medicines. Had we gone to any other doctor in the city for this kind of regular check up, it would have costed us maximum of Rs.150-200 and 1-2 hours of time. Here we had spent 4 days and huge amount without any result. So we finally decided to do away with the hospital and approached other cardiologist in the city who did his job upto our satisfaction. Now, for last two years my mother is regularly visiting this cardiologist and we are quite happy with the services and she does not have any problems. My mother still gets horrified whenever she remembers her experience at Apollo hospital as an out patient.
Good Experience
I had an accident in which my left leg was fractured. I was taken to Apollo Speciality Hospital in Nandanam to the emergency section. X-ray revealed that its a multiple fracture and the leg needs to be operated and a steel plate to be fixed inside. The operation was supposed to be done next day.
The doctor in the emergency section was quite polite and he plastered my leg immediately to relieve me from pain. Then I was shifted to a private room. A senior doctor visited me late at night who was supposed to operate me the next day. After few check ups, I was operated the next day.
I had a mediclaim policy for which I had an indentity card. On presenting that card at the counter, I was provided the cash - less service at the hospital. I was not required to pay for anything except some minor deposit of Rs.5000.
During my 10 days of hospitalisation, I was quite impressed by the services of the hospital. The nurses and wardboys know their job very well and are polite enough - a kind of American culture runs throughout the hospital. Every morning, a dietician would visit me and ask me whether I am being able to digest the food comfortably and whether I have any preferences. Then I would be provided with a menu card for the day, in which I have to tick the menu for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner and intermittent drinks and snacks. Food is good over there. After couple of days, a physiotherapist would visit every evening and make me walk with the walker/cruches.
The most important thing worth mentioning here is that the hospital has a dedicated cell for claiming the insurances, which takes care of getting all the approvals from the insurance agency. And perhaps with the rapo they have with the insurance agencies claims forwarded through them are approved within minutes!!! The entire hospitalisation cost including operation, room rentals, medicines, etc was about Rs.1 lakh and I was not requried to spent anything except some minor expenditure of few thousand.
I feel Apollo Hospital is ideal for those who have mediclaim policy. My friend had a tough time to get his mediclaim approved when he was admitted in some other hospital.
So, my conclusion is Apollo is good for in patients with mediclaim and troublesome for out patients.
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