MOH to 'closely monitor' demand in public healthcare following changes to IP rules: Ong Ye Kung

The Ministry of Health (MOH) will be closely monitoring the impact of the policy changes to the Integrated Shield Plan (IP) regime as individuals on new riders may choose to seek public healthcare to reduce their out-of-pocket expenses, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung on Monday (Jan 12). 

He was responding to parliamentary questions by Members of Parliament on concerns that private healthcare patients would migrate to the public sector following changes to the IP regime that include a higher co-payment cap for new riders from the current $3,000 to $6,000. 

New riders sold from April 1 this year will also no longer be allowed to cover the minimum deductibles patients have to pay before insurance kicks in.

In his reply, Ong said MOH anticipates that there should be a medium-to-long impact on private and public healthcare utilisation rates as well as wait times following the policy changes.

Assuring Singaporeans that efforts to expand public health capacity in both hospital beds and outpatient capacity are underway to meet the demands of an ageing population, Ong said: "If need be, we may need to implement surge capacity for selected treatments."

Ong earlier reiterated that the changes to the IP rules are meant to slow down the migration of private healthcare patients to the public hospitals. 

This was due to the "overly generous" health insurance coverage from IP riders, he said, which pushes the cost of private healthcare as hospital premiums grew at an average rate of 17 per cent for the past three years. 

Following the policy changes, Ong said that IP rider premiums will cost 30 per cent lower on average than existing policies.

Ong added that the changes will "restore" health insurance to its original objective of providing assurance against large, infrequent healthcare bills, rather than small bills.

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chingshijie@asiaone.com