6th Mar 2024
Healthcare costs will continue to rise due to our ageing population, advancements in medical technology and healthcare cost inflation. The Ministry of Health (MOH) will review our financing schemes to ensure healthcare remains accessible and affordable for all.
Providing assurance of healthcare affordability
2. The MediShield Life Council will review MediShield Life coverage to ensure care remains accessible and affordable. This includes the following key areas:
a. Enhancing MediShield Life to give Singaporeans greater assurance against large bills. The Council will look at refreshing MediShield Life claim limits for inpatient and day surgery treatments to cover 9 in 10 subsidised bills. MOH will also review MediSave limits in tandem, to ensure that MediShield Life and MediSave collectively provide better coverage for medical bills.
b. Enhancing MediShield Life’s outpatient coverage. The Council will consider extending coverage to more types of outpatient and home-based care to encourage right-siting of care, and enhance coverage of outpatient treatments already covered, such as dialysis.
c. Expanding MediShield Life coverage to new groundbreaking treatments. The Council will review how to expand MediShield Life coverage to Cell, Tissue and Gene Therapy Products (CTGTPs) and the safeguards needed, given the uncertainty over their clinical- and cost- effectiveness.
3. These changes, as well as the rising payout and claim trends, will require a review of MediShield Life premiums to ensure that premiums remain adequate to keep the scheme self-sustaining. Premiums are expected to increase but will continue to be fully payable by MediSave. To support the lower income and those who may not have enough MediSave balances, MOH will review premium subsidies as well as other targeted support measures. No one will lose their MediShield Life coverage due to a genuine inability to afford the premiums.
4. The MediShield Life Council has started the review process and is expected to finalise their recommendations in the second half of 2024.
Enhancing Subsidies at Community Hospitals
5. Community hospitals provide sub-acute and rehabilitative care for patients after their discharge from acute hospitals. To support care continuity between the acute hospital and community hospital, we will expand subsidy coverage to more diagnostic services and drugs at community hospitals. This will be rolled out in phases, starting with diagnostic services in the fourth quarter of 2024, to drugs supported under the Medication Assistance Fund in the first half of 2025.
6. More than 5,000 community hospital patients will benefit from the expanded scope of subsidised drugs annually. Patients at community hospitals undergoing sub-acute or rehabilitative care will also benefit from the expanded scope of subsidised diagnostic services.
7. We will also enhance subsidies for community hospital patients, by aligning the community hospital subsidy framework to the acute hospital subsidy framework. This will be implemented from the fourth quarter of 2024 (see Table 1 below).
Table 1: Revised Community Hospital (CH) subsidy framework
| Monthly Per Capita Household Income (PCHI)* | Current CH subsidy rate | Revised CH subsidy rate (aligned to AH PCHI thresholds and subsidy rates) |
| No PCHI, Annual Value (AV) ≤ $21,000 | 80% | 80% |
| PCHI ≤ $1,500 |
| $1,500 < PCHI ≤ $2,100 | 70% |
| $2,100 < PCHI ≤ $2,300 | 75% |
| $2,300 < PCHI ≤ $2,600 | 60% | 70% |
| $2,600 < PCHI ≤ $3,000 | 50% | 65% |
| $3,000 < PCHI ≤ $3,300 | 60% |
| $3,300 < PCHI ≤ $3,600 | 40% | 55% |
| PCHI > $3,600 | 30% | 50% |
* Includes the revised PCHI thresholds with effect from the fourth quarter of 2024.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
6 MARCH 2024