Press Releases

Medical fee waiver mechanism aims at helping the vulnerable

To channel public funds to help the vulnerable groups was the first guiding principle in the designing of the enhanced medical fee waiver mechanism, the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong said.

These vulnerable groups comprised the low-income groups, chronic patients and elderly with little income and assets, he added. Recipients of Comprehensive Social Security Assistance are already exempted from payment of public medical fees.

The second principle is that there should be a set of objective and transparent criteria to assess a patient's eligibility for exemption from payment of public medical fees.

Thirdly, the enhanced mechanism should facilitate accessibility to services, while maintaining the low administrative and operating cost of the existing mechanism, he said.

Speaking at a motion debate on medical fee waiver mechanism in the Legislative Council tonight (March 12), Dr Yeoh explained that under these principles, the enhanced waiver mechanism would effectively provide the protection that vulnerable groups need, without unduly assisting better off patients who can afford the new fees.

He pointed out that the enhanced waiver mechanism would have the following merits:

*Public subsidy is better targetted to the low income groups, chronic patients and elders with limited income and assets;

*The enhanced mechanism has a higher degree of transparency;

*The enhanced mechanism is more accessible and user-friendly, as waivers will have across-the-board applicability to public hospitals or clinics that provide the same service, and the more common application of waiver with a defined period of time.

Under the enhanced mechanism, Dr Yeoh said that a patient would be eligible to apply for a waiver for his medical expenditure at the public sector if the patient's monthly household income did not exceed 75 per cent of the Median Monthly Domestic Household Income (MMDHI) applicable to the patient's household size, and if the patient's household asset was within a stipulated limit.

"Taking into account the fact that most elderly citizens will no longer earn any income and have to depend on their personal savings, households with elderly members will enjoy a higher asset limit than those without.

"In addition, to protect those patients who have little asset except their residential property, the residential property owned and occupied by the patient's household will not count towards this asset limit," he said.

Patients whose monthly household income are approximately at the level of 50 per cent of the MMDHI and pass the asset limit test will be considered for full waiving of their medical fees at public clinics/hospitals.

For patients whose monthly household income are between 50 per cent to 75 per cent of the MMDHI applicable to their household size and pass the asset limit test, medical social workers will consider their applications on a case-by-case basis in deciding whether a full or partial waiver valid for a defined period of time or one-off should be granted.

Dr Yeoh said, "We will regularly review the operation of the enhanced mechanism after its implementation on April 1 to ensure smooth service delivery and that the administrative procedures are efficient and provide maximum convenience to the users."

End/Wednesday, March 12, 2003
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