Hong Kong to deploy 1,000 hospital staff to guide patients through fee reform
Public hospital systems, including billing and dispensing, have been updated to reflect adjusted fees aimed at tackling structural challenges
Dr Wong Yiu-chung, the Hospital Authority’s director of cluster services, said on Saturday that public hospital systems, including billing and dispensing, had been updated to reflect the adjusted fees, which aimed to address structural challenges in the healthcare sector.
Under the revamp set to take effect on January 1, the government aims to reduce its public healthcare subsidy rate from 97.6 per cent, one of the highest in the world, to 90 per cent by 2030.
“We have completed the final stages of testing,” Wong told a radio show. “All systems are quite stable, and I am quite confident the changes will be implemented as we expected.”
He said that great effort had gone into publicising and explaining the different stages and scope of the reforms to both medical staff and residents.
Wong said one of the patients’ biggest concerns was the new medical fee waiver scheme, which expands eligibility for subsidised or free healthcare from 300,000 to 1.4 million people by relaxing income and asset limits.