I signed up as a lichen planus patient with Dr Rajesh Shah for his 8 months’ package. He requires full payment in advance. Six months down, he suggested I renew my treatment for after the 8 months. I did not do so at that time. At the start of the 8th month, needing more medicine, I asked him for it. He did not send any, but kept asking me to renew.
He had charged Rs 5000/- for 8 months for a few email consultations and the cost of medicine would have been Rs 200/- at most. Yet he balked at honouring the full term of the treatment, claiming that medicine was sent only for 4 months at a time - but he had never said this at the time of requiring the advance payment. In effect, he was denying treatment to a patient during the currency of a valid subscription, unless that patient first paid (a few thousand rupees) for a renewed subscription.
When I protested, he offered to send more medicine to cover 2 weeks (that would have at most cost Rs 15/-), and then that too he did not send. I wrote to him that this was both unprofessional and unethical, and I did not renew my treatment with him. With regard to the treatment itself, I found that while it treated the existing lichen planus, it did not prevent new patches from appearing.