• Receipt of foreign currency from international patients - medical tourism

Dear Team ,

We as hospital receives many patients from foreign and some of the patients want to pay their bills in Foreign currency like USD, EUR, AED,.... not by card or online transfer as they don't have that facility.

As per FEMA , we cannot accept the foreign currency from anyone directly as we are not Authorised dealers to do the same . What are the ways to help the patients in converting the money and paying the Indian currency ( INR) to the hospital.

Some patients are able to convert the money into INT and at the same we cannot accept from them in cash more than 2.0 lakhs as per income tax act. What should we do in this scenario ?

Please advise on this .
Asked 5 years ago in Taxation

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8 Answers

See in this situation the online or through a card transfer is only way out as the hospital cannot accept more then 2 lakh from the patient and further for converting currency they have to go to the centres authorised for same. 

As there is no other medium then bank transfer or the card transfer to deal with the situation in accordance to Indian law.

Shubham Jhajharia
Advocate, Ahmedabad
25514 Answers
179 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

verify insurance coverage and benefits for patients who have been scheduled for a procedure or hospital stay. You can  work directly with their  insurance company to confirm all required authorizations that have been approved prior to a patient’s visit. 

 

2) in other cases insist on payment by credit card 

Ajay Sethi
Advocate, Mumbai
94520 Answers
7485 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

You can ask them to get exchange currency from authorised dealer appointed by RBI, as per RBI's rules and regulations.

 

Foreign exchange can be purchased from any authorised dealer. Besides authorised dealers, full-fledged money changers are also permitted to release exchange for business and private visits.

 

Ganesh Kadam
Advocate, Pune
12910 Answers
253 Consultations

4.9 on 5.0

You don't have any other way than converting the currency in Indian money

Prashant Nayak
Advocate, Mumbai
31807 Answers
175 Consultations

4.1 on 5.0

1. Exchange foreign currency in Indian banks.
2. Approach an RBI approved money changer holding “Authorised Dealers Category – II or Full Fledged Money Changers (FFMCs) licence.

Mohammed Mujeeb
Advocate, Hyderabad
19299 Answers
32 Consultations

4.7 on 5.0

Dear Sir,

Dear Sir,

Please ask your above question on www.taxfull.com which is sister concern of www;kaanoon.com, where is experts will be Chartered Accounts.

Netravathi Kalaskar
Advocate, Bengaluru
4952 Answers
27 Consultations

4.8 on 5.0

Hi 

1) You can ask your banker's to open an extension counter in your hospital or you can have a tie up with an authorised forex dealer who can set up a help desk at your hospital and help overseas patients exchange their foreign currency. 

2) In today's scenario, banker's / forex dealers will be more than willing to set up counter's at your hospital itself free of cost, if the patient volumes are decent enough for them to sustain their costs. 

3) Now coming to question of accepting cash for any transaction above Rs2Lakhs, the hospital has to accept card payments or online transfers only for payments in excess of Rs2Lakhs, as the hospital becomes liable under  Section 269ST of Income Tax Act if it accepts payments in cash in excess of Rs2,00,000-/-

4) Some hospitals are using methods such as making

a) Separate cash billing in case of medicines and consumables in name of a pharmacy, 

b) Separate cash billing in case of diagnostics(xray, MRI, etc) 

 

You should speak to your chartered accountant to understand the taxation , advance transfer pricing related issues etc if choose to have separate entities for pharmacies and diagnostics.

 

Hope this information is useful. 

 

Rajgopalan Sripathi
Advocate, Hyderabad
2173 Answers
394 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

As per law you cannot accept the payments for the bills through foreign currencies.

The patients can exchange the foreign currencies through authorized dealers and for payments beyond Rs. 2 Lakhs they can buy a DD or banker's cheque for making payments.

You cannot violate the laws to facilitate the foreigners to make payment as per their convenience.

T Kalaiselvan
Advocate, Vellore
84711 Answers
2172 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

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