All new policyholders with rider plans must pay 5% of hospital bill moving forward. Existing policyholders are not affected at this point in time.
Sure Boh Singapore understands that existing policyholders can enjoy existing benefits subject to review of their policy by their insurers.
Minister Gan Kim Yong announced in Parliament today that co-payment in all healthcare schemes will help ensure that our healthcare system is sustainable.
He said that all stakeholders including patients have a stake in making prudent decision in healthcare services.
Zero co-payment coverage “undermines the co-payment principle” and “dilutes the personal responsibility to choose appropriate and necessary care”.
When healthcare services are over-consumed, it will lead to escalating healthcare costs not just for people with riders, but for everyone.
Moving forward, new integrated shield plan (IP) riders must have a co-payment of 5% or more.
There will be a cap on the co-payment amount each year so policyholders do not have to worry that they will have to dig too deeply into their pockets especially for large bills.
Ministry of Health (MOH) is giving insurers until April 1, 2019 to implement new riders that include co-payment and cap.
From now till then, no full riders for IPs can be sold.
Anyone buying a rider plan from 8 March has to switch to the new scheme latest by April 1, 2021. This is to stop people from rushing to buy full riders after hearing about this announcement.
This move only applies to new policyholders and will NOT affect the 1.1 million people with full riders.
Earlier in the morning, there were news that all six insurance companies selling IP wanted existing and new policyholders to pay part of their hospital bills.
Thankfully, MOH decided to only effect this change on new policyholders.
This will help existing policyholders with pre-existing illness to continue to have a peace of mind in seeking healthcare treatments.
However, we should be mindful that over-consumption and over-prescription of medical services will cause healthcare expenditure and health insurance premium to increase in the long-run.
Rising premiums will not only affect you but everyone around you including the ones you love.
If you’d like to contribute your story to us, drop us an email at editors@sureboh.sg and we’ll review it. We read each submission that comes to us within two weeks of receiving it.
