The Health Ministry (MOH) has said that from January next year, it will almost double the qualifying income criteria for the Primary Care Partnership Scheme (PCPS) from S$800 to S$1,500.
The scheme allows needy patients to receive subsidised treatment at General Practitioners (GPs) and dental clinics near their homes.
The age eligibility criteria of the scheme will also be lowered from 65 to 40.
The new criteria will benefit some 710,000 more Singaporeans.
It is part of a series of initiatives to be rolled out in the first quarter of next year to make healthcare more affordable.
About 20 per cent of private clinics are participating in the scheme, and MOH wants to engage more private clinics to join in.
Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said: “Part of the reason why not all the GPs are in the scheme today is because the numbers are small. We have just over 30,000 patients on the PCPS scheme today. So I think going forward, with the increase in the number, in the larger pool of eligible Singaporeans, more GPs are likely to come on board.”
Private doctors welcome the initiative, but they also express concerns.
Dr Chong Yeh Woei, president of the Singapore Medical Association, said: “We are a little bit concerned about the paper work and the administrative hurdles. The second is of course the scale. The present number of PCPS patients is about 31,000; we will see this potentially enlarge to 700,000 patients. So to handle such a scale of patients, we will definitely need a more robust system.”
MOH said it will find ways to minimise administrative procedures.
It will also be revising the application process to the scheme to cater to the larger number of patients eligible under the new criteria.
To help Singaporeans better manage chronic diseases, MOH will raise the Medisave withdrawal limit for outpatient treatments from S$300 to S$400 per Medisave account per year.
The scheme will be renamed Medisave400.
About 112,000 chronic patients will stand to benefit from the scheme.
Subsidies for drugs required for chronic disease management will be raised from the current 50 per cent to 75 per cent.
In addition, MOH will enhance the subsidy under the Medication Assistance Fund (MAF), also to 75 per cent. The fund helps needy Singaporean patients pay for expensive drugs used to treat specific medical conditions.
Mr Gan believes the new initiatives, which are meant to help outpatient treatment, will also indirectly ease the bed crunch in hospitals over the long term. Mr Gan explained that if chronic ailments can be better managed, the patient’s health can be improved. Eventually, this can minimise the need to hospitalise them.
In other key changes, MOH will also enhance Medifund to include non-residential intermediate and long-term care services (ILTC), such as day rehabilitation and home nursing. With this, needy Singaporeans can opt for non-residential care, helping them recover and age gracefully in the community. This is expected to benefit about 1,000 more Singaporeans.
Mr Gan is also taking over former Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Lim Boon Heng, as the person in-charge of the Ministerial Committee on Ageing. He said that he has set up four sub-committees to look into ageing issues. The sub-committees will study areas in active ageing and employability, health care and social care services, homecare and family support, as well as manpower needs.
- CNA/ac/ms
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