Committee recommends significant enhancements for MediShield Life

Committee recommends significant enhancements for MediShield Life

Benefits should focus on large subsidised hospital bills, MediShield Life Review Committee says

By
Sara Grosse
Published: March 1, 3:21 PM

SINGAPORE - The MediShield Life Review Committee has made preliminary recommendations to enhance the MediShield Life benefit parameters.

The committee said today (March 1) that it agrees that MediShield Life’s focus should remain on large subsidised hospital bills as these are the bills that most concern Singaporeans.

It added that smaller and more predictable bills can be covered by Medisave and other savings.

The committee said these considerations reflect the views from participants at the Focus Group Discussions that it has had so far.

To date, it has held 23 focus group discussions with close to 800 participants.

The committee’s proposed benefit parameters for MediShield Life payout involves raising the maximum claimable limit and lowering co-insurance.

Among the recommendations made are the removal of the current lifetime limit of S$300,000, increasing the daily claim limits for normal wards and ICU wards by up to 55 per cent, halving co-insurance rates and increasing the claim limits for outpatient cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments.

With these proposed enhancements, the committee says close to 10,000 more subsidised Class B2/C patients will pay less than S$3,000 for their inpatient bills every year.

In addition, the enhancements will see 1,500 more subsidised patients undergoing chemotherapy pay less than S$1,000 in a year, after MediShield Life payouts.

The committee also recommends that the uninsured be brought into the common MediShield Life risk-pool to maximise the effect of risk-pooling, instead of setting up a separate fund for those with pre-existing conditions.

To address the issue of the additional costs arising from the expected higher claims from those with pre-existing conditions, the committee’s preliminary view is that the cost of universal coverage should be shared across those with pre-existing conditions, the existing insured policyholders and the government.

The committee also called on the government to support most of the costs of universal coverage.

Based on the preliminary recommendations, the committee has asked the Health Ministry to provide premium estimates to help them in further deliberations.

The committee will also continue to study issues that have been highlighted by members of the public, and experts, some of which have premium implications.

This includes reviewing the extent of further pre-funding, deductibles, additional outpatient treatments and the impact of Integrated Shield Plans.

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