Schemes to help manage medical costs

MOH's Reply

The Straits Times, 26 Jan 2015

Schemes to help manage medical costs

Ms Tang Siew Ngoh asked the Ministry of Health to consider the inclusion of osteoporosis as a chronic condition to help offset her mother's medical costs ("Offer subsidy for osteoporosis drug"; Jan 9).

The Chronic Disease Management Programme (CDMP) helps to improve the care of patients with chronic conditions and helps them manage the cost of treatment via Medisave use.

The CDMP was expanded in January last year to include five additional conditions. There are now 15 chronic diseases under the programme.

We continually review our schemes, and will take Ms Tang's feedback into consideration in our reviews of the CDMP.

Ms Tang can tap other avenues to help with her mother's medical costs. The ministry recently made Medisave use more flexible by allowing patients to use up to $300 a year for outpatient scans needed for diagnosis and treatment. This includes magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.

Additionally, from April 1 this year, under the Flexi-Medisave scheme, elderly folk who are

65 years old and above can use Flexi-Medisave for outpatient medical treatment at public hospitals' specialist outpatient clinics, polyclinics and clinics participating in the Community Health Assist Scheme.

Singaporeans who face difficulty with their medical bills can approach the medical social workers, who will be able to assist them further.

The Medication Assistance Fund in our public health-care institutions, for example, helps eligible patients better afford non-standard drugs that have been assessed by the institutions' clinical review panels to be clinically necessary and appropriate for their conditions. This includes drugs used for the treatment of osteoporosis.

Lim Bee Khim (Ms)
Director, Corporate Communications
Ministry of Health

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Forum Letter

The Straits Times, 9 Jan 2015

Offer subsidy for osteoporosis drugs

My 84-year-old mother suffers from severe osteoporosis. She was previously prescribed Fosamax and then Protos at subsidised rates under the Optimal programme at Singapore General Hospital, but these drugs became ineffective as her osteoporosis worsened.

She has now been prescribed a daily injection of a non-standard drug, Forteo, which costs $860.32 for 28 doses ("What makes a drug 'non-standard' "? by Ms Lim Lih Mei; Wednesday). I was told that there is no further subsidy as osteoporosis is not classified as a chronic disease.

Can the Ministry of Health consider severe osteoporosis a chronic disease, since it affects many of our pioneers, and extend the subsidy to non-standard drugs that treat the condition? This will help reduce the total cost of treatment, which includes other procedures like regular MRI scans.

Tang Siew Ngoh (Ms)