A MediShield Life review revealed future healthcare priorities in the coming years. These priorities included ensuring adequate coverage of large, ever-skyrocketing hospital bills and enabling the shift towards providing more care in affordable non-hospital settings. These priorities reflected the realities of Singapore’s aging society.
This Pacific Prime CXA article will discuss the MediShield Life review and the different healthcare priorities in hopes of addressing the needs of Singapore’s aging society.
Why is Healthcare in Singapore so Expensive?
Singapore’s costly healthcare can be attributed to a variety of factors. One main reason for Singapore’s expensive healthcare is medical facilities feature high-quality equipment and some of the most advanced medicine technology available.
Common with hospitals in general, public facilities are more affordable with basic but not necessarily comprehensive treatment. On the other hand, private facilities are considerably more expensive due to greater quality care and even better amenities than their public counterparts.
Additionally, medical professionals are also highly trained and internationally experienced, boasting a broad range of medical specialties. With more seasoned, experienced doctors, you can expect to pay more for higher quality care compared to junior, less-experienced doctors.
Location is also another contributing factor when it comes to Singapore’s overwhelming healthcare costs. For instance, healthcare facilities in Singapore’s Central Business District (CBD) will be much more expensive than those in Singapore’s rural areas.
Overview: The Healthcare Priorities for Singapore’s Aging Society
According to a MediShield Life review in late October, future healthcare priorities in the coming years in hopes of addressing the needs of Singapore’s aging population included ensuring large medical bills are covered and enabling the shift towards providing further medical care in less-costly non-hospital settings.
Both these priorities reflected Singapore’s aging population and the growing availability of newer, more expensive forms of treatment as well as rising manpower costs. However, despite the national effort to prioritize preventative care, healthcare costs in Singapore will continue to rise regardless.
With the raised claim limits for hospital stays, treatments and the policy year, Singapore’s national health insurance scheme will once again cover nine out of ten subsidized bills as it was designed to do so.
Addressing The Lacking Hospital Bill Coverage
By default, Singapore’s national health insurance scheme only covers less than eight in ten hospital bills because claim limits couldn’t keep up with the medical costs. However, with the new healthcare priorities, patients can rest assured that even their bigger hospital bills will qualify for coverage.
Additionally, new forms of outpatient treatment and home-based care were also added as additional areas of coverage to keep medical costs in check. According to experts, this would help shift care outside of hospitals. Claim limits were also raised to accommodate more costly outpatient and community hospital bills.
To ensure costly medical bills from private hospitals as well as Class A and B1 wards don’t cost as much as subsidized Class B2 and C wards, private bills were reduced to the equivalent of a subsidized bill before MediShield Life payout computing.
Pro-ration factors were adjusted, allowing MediShield Life to cover a smaller proportion of private hospital as well as Class A and B1 ward bills. For instance, the 25% pro-ration for a private hospital stay will drop to 16% while the 35% pro-ration for a Class A ward stay will drop to 25%.
Case Study Example
According to an example from the Singapore Actuarial Society (SAS), a 60-year old Singaporean’s 18-day private hospital stay for a hip replacement resulted in a bill of $36,750. This consisted of $18,000 for daily ward and treatment fees, $12,750 surgical procedure fees, and $6,000 for implants.
With the current 25% pro-ration for all three expenses, taking into account the deductible and co-insurance amounts the patient paid, the MediShield Life payout would theoretically be $4,980, amounting to 14% of the total bill.
However, with the revised 16% pro-ration of the stay and 10% for the surgical procedure and implant, including the deductible and co-insurance revisions, the MediShield Life payout would drop by a drastic 77% to $1,130. The remainder would be paid out by the patient’s Integrated Shield Plan (IP) or company insurance, the MediSave funds, and/or cash.
Access Quality Healthcare with Pacific Prime CXA
Singapore’s aging population is one of the biggest contributing factors to overwhelming healthcare costs. And with private hospitals being generally preferred, more and more people are going to choose these facilities despite the higher cost.
Without a health insurance plan that matches your budget and healthcare needs, however, you will be subject to out-of-pocket payment. But fortunately, that is where we come in. As an experienced health insurance broker, Pacific Prime CXA can help you select appropriate health insurance plans that not only meet your unique budget needs, but also your healthcare needs.
What’s more, we can go the extra mile in helping you out with completely impartial advice at no additional cost. And if you have any further questions or if you’d like to compare quotes from multiple insurers, feel free to get in touch with us and get a free quote.
He graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Arts, Media & Communication major (concentration: Creative Content) from Mahidol University International College (MUIC). During the compulsory major elective period in the summer of 2021 and voluntarily during the summer of 2022, he also interned as a video and photo editor at Mbrella Films.
He has experience working as an English Content Writer at a real estate buying/renting/selling platform in Thonglor. There, he crafted company blog posts on a multitude of topics. Topics include market trends, legal issues and disputes in property businesses, financial guides, expat guides, home insurance, home decoration and maintenance, and weekly real estate news quick-recaps. Occasionally, as part of the blog-writing process, he would also translate existing Thai blogs to English.
In his free time, Guy enjoys doing scriptwriting and storytelling for comic strips, watching movies, and listening to music (particularly film scores).