Government to roll out pilot programme for price transparency for private hospitals (with photo)
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Under the pilot programme, members of the HKPHA, including all the 11 private hospitals in Hong Kong, will try out the following three price transparency measures on a voluntary basis:
* encouraging hospitals and doctors to provide budget estimates for patients receiving non-emergency operations/procedures (such as thyroidectomy, colonoscopy, LASIK, knee arthroscopy) at the hospitals, as a reference for the overall costs involved;
* publicising the fee schedules for major chargeable items (such as operating theatre charges and charges for common nursing procedures) on hospital websites; and
* publicising historical cost statistics for common treatments/procedures (such as vaginal delivery and caesarean section) on hospital websites.
The Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, said today (September 29), "The Government has been striving to enhance the price transparency of private healthcare facilities (PHFs). We hope that private hospitals will acquire relevant experience by trying out and implementing the measures to enhance price transparency under the pilot programme. On the other hand, the Government will continue to engage stakeholders and consider incorporating these measures into the new bill to regulate PHFs.
"All members of the HKPHA have joined the pilot programme, showing that they have attached great importance to the enhancement of price transparency in healthcare services. In fact, the private hospitals have partially implemented the above three measures since August this year, which enables the healthcare professionals and other frontline workers to familiarise with the relevant operational details."
The Government launched a three-month public consultation on revamping the regulatory regime for PHFs in December 2014. According to the public views received, generally speaking, there was solid support for having a more modernised and comprehensive regulatory control for different categories of PHFs in Hong Kong, including enhancing price transparency. The Government plans to introduce to the Legislative Council the relevant bill to regulate PHFs in the first half of 2017.
Ends/Thursday, September 29, 2016
Issued at HKT 19:15
Issued at HKT 19:15
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