The Department of the Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition (APDC) in Astana conducted an investigation into Damu Information Technology Centre LLP for setting monopolistically high prices for the services of the medical information system «DamuMed».
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For reference: DamuMed is an information system for accessing a medical organisation to book a doctor's appointment, call a doctor to your home, and view medical documents.
According to the press service of the agency, as a result of the investigation, experts identified instances of setting monopolistically high prices for the above-mentioned services in 2020-2022.
«DamuMed unreasonably included in the final cost of services costs not directly related to the main production activity. These circumstances led to a violation of subparagraph 1) of Article 174 of the Entrepreneurial Code», the statement said.
The Specialised Inter-District Administrative Court of Astana recognised the results of the antitrust investigation as lawful. The penalty imposed on the company has not been disclosed.
For context, in June, a resident of Almaty discovered in the mobile application of medical services «DamuMed» that she had been recorded as a drug-dependent patient. The woman installed the app to print a discharge note from the maternity hospital and found in it a fictitious entry about an appointment with a social worker, as well as a note about a psycho-correctional conversation.
Incidentally, fake doctor appointments, notifications about test results, and other false entries in the «DamuMed» app came to light as early as 2020. At that time, many Kazakhstanis found fictitious records in the app of visits to clinics; some were assigned non-existent children, while others allegedly had operations.