Enhancing Medishield Payout – Launch Of Public Consultation

03 Apr 2008

1. MediShield is an affordable insurance scheme for large hospital bills in Class B2 and C wards. MediShield works hand-in-hand with Medisave, by helping to pay for large hospitalisation bills while Medisave covers the smaller bills.

OBJECTIVE

2. Currently, basic MediShield covers about 60% of the large Class B2/C hospital bills, with patients paying the remaining 40%. This may still be a burden for some with larger bills. Building upon the earlier reform, the Ministry of Health (MOH) is proposing to further improve MediShield payouts.

3. The objective is to cover about 80% of large B2/C hospital bills, so that Singaporeans remain well-protected against catastrophic bills.

4. Specifically, the Ministry proposes to substantially improve the following MediShield limits to achieve this objective:

• Increase daily claim limits for normal wards from $250 to $450;

• Increase daily claim limits for ICU wards from $500 to $900;

• Increase the claim limits of surgical procedures; 

• Increase the claim limits for surgical implants and approved medical consumables from $2,500 to $7,000; and.

• Increase some of the claim limits for outpatient benefits such as chemotherapy and stereotactic radiotherapy for cancer.

5. As MediShield is a not-for-profit self-financing insurance scheme, the above substantial increases in benefits and payouts will require some adjustments in the MediShield premiums which are established through detailed actuarial computations.  The computations suggest that the increased payouts can be supported with some modest premium adjustments. For the vast majority of the policyholders, the increase in premiums will be below $5 per month.

LAUNCH OF PUBLIC CONSULTATION

6. MOH is launching a public consultation exercise to gather feedback on the proposed changes to MediShield.  The feedback and views gathered will be used to determine the final benefit design for MediShield.  Please refer to the Public Consultation paper on Enhancing MediShield Payout for more details.

7. All feedback on MediShield should reach the Ministry by 30 Apr 2008. The public can give us their feedback at moh_info@moh.gov.sg or send their comments to:

“Feedback on MediShield”

Ministry of Health

College of Medicine Building

16 College Road

Singapore 169854

Fax: 6224 1677

UPDATE ON MEDISHIELD EXPERIENCE

8. In addition, MOH has prepared an information paper on the MediShield experience since the 2005 reform.  For details, please refer to the MOH Information Paper “Update on MediShield Experience 2004-2007”. The key points are:

a. As a result of the last reform, MediShield is now paying out more for large Class B2/C bills, reducing Singaporeans’ out-of-pocket payment for their hospitalisation bills. 

b. MediShield membership has improved and covers about 78% of Singaporeans and Permanent Residents. It has been restored to a healthy financial status with a large and sustainable membership base.

c. There is increased competition in the market since the reform, with more Medisave-approved Integrated Plans offered by the private insurers. Many Singaporeans have also taken a pro-active approach to topping-up their insurance coverage according to their individual needs. The number of Singaporeans with private Integrated Plans has increased by about 20% since 2004.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH

3 APR 2008

• Public Consultation paper on Enhancing MediShield Payout (35 KB) 
  

• MOH Information Paper “Update on MediShield Experience 2004-2007” (38 KB)