SINGAPORE — To manage healthcare inflation, the Government should look into the cost-effectiveness of medical practices, develop new initiatives to reduce reliance on hospital care and collaborate with insurers to identify cost concerns.

The MediShield Life Review Committee made these suggestions in their recommendations released yesterday.

“While MediShield Life can reduce the costs to a patient at the point when he gets sick, it will not help us contain the total costs of medical care, which ultimately are borne by Singaporeans,” the committee wrote in their report. “Insurance inevitably causes both patients and medical providers to become less cost-conscious and to use more medical services than they really should ... This makes upstream measures to manage healthcare costs even more important.”

To this end, the committee recommended the Government build up capabilities to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of medical practices, technologies and drugs used by medical providers. It called on public hospitals to take the lead by adopting cost-effective and proven treatments, as well as using generic drugs where available.

The committee also saw the need to introduce services and programmes that will reduce Singaporeans’ reliance on hospital-based care to ensure the healthcare needs of an ageing population are met in the long-term.

It further proposed that the Central Provident Fund Board, the operator of MediShield Life, collaborate with insurers to provide more information on bill sizes and highlight areas of concerns.

Investing in public education to help Singaporeans stay healthy is also necessary, the committee noted, as it suggested health screening programmes for early detection of ailments.

Nonetheless, through its engagement sessions with Singaporeans, the committee learnt that healthcare providers, particularly those in the private sector, could be prescribing more costly treatments with the realisation that patients have generous employer medical benefits or are protected by Integrated Shield plans. Ideas to manage this issue include setting fee guidelines, for instance.

From feedback received, the committee said Singaporeans agreed on the need for a healthy lifestyle to prevent large medical bills and advocated bonuses for those who do not make insurance claims.

The committee also observed the need to raise public awareness of health insurance and Singapore’s healthcare financing policies.

“It is (Singaporeans’) responsibility to plan for (their) own and (their) family’s longer-term healthcare needs, and this will be helped by a good understanding of how Singapore’s healthcare financing works,” the committee wrote.

To avoid duplication between employer medical benefits and MediShield Life, the committee recommended the Government explore more perks for employers to provide their staff with portable medical benefits that ride on MediShield Life. This could be done through improving corporate tax incentives and offering grants.