Singapore to establish a health insurance committee
The committee will address issues around accessibility, transparency and claims processing in health insurance
Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) has appointed a 12-member Multilateral Healthcare Insurance Committee (MHIC), due to be officially established from 27 April 2021, to provide a platform for healthcare providers, payers, consumer representatives and the government to jointly address issues related to health insurance.
Comprising representatives from the Academy of Medicine Singapore (AMS), Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE), Fee Benchmarks Advisory Committee (FBAC), Life Insurance Association (LIA), Singapore Medical Association (SMA) and private hospitals, the MHIC will provide a platform for doctors, insurer, hospitals and the MOH to work together with the goal of enhancing Singapore’s health insurance system, promoting quality, safety, and affordability for Singaporeans.
The MHIC will recommend improvements to manage rising healthcare costs in the current healthcare insurance system and will also guide the establishment of platforms to address complaints and conflicts arising from healthcare insurance claims.
Further to this, the improvement of Singapore’s healthcare infrastructure (which the MHIC will surely effect) will likely also provide an improved environment for international travel insurers and IPMI providers working with providers in the island state. The issues of accessibility, transparency and claims processing in Singapore’s healthcare system that are to be addressed by the new MHIC should also prove advantageous in terms of international patient assistance here too, in the long run.
In 2020, Hospitals & Healthcare assessed international patient’s access to medical assistance and healthcare provision in Singapore, and found that increasing healthcare costs in this destination was one of the key factors for assistance providers to be mindful of.