Lo Chung-mau: Hong Kong's public healthcare fee waiver mechanism expanded to cover 2 million people, over 300,000 applications approved.

Hong Kong's Secretary for Health, Lo Chung-mau, said in a written reply to a Legislative Council member's question that the reform of public healthcare fees has significantly expanded the coverage of the fee waiver mechanism, with the number of potential beneficiaries rising from about 900,000 in the past to about 2 million. As of the end of last month, the Hospital Authority had received more than 330,000 waiver applications, of which over 300,000 were approved, a approval rate of more than 90 percent. The number of people granted full fee waivers increased from fewer than 14,000 for the whole of the previous year to more than 250,000, reflecting the tilting of resources toward impoverished patients. In terms of emergency services, the reform has effectively guided patients to use services more rationally. In the first nine months of this year, the 18 accident and emergency departments of the Hospital Authority recorded more than 1.4 million attendances, down 0.9 percent year on year, with Category 4 and Category 5 semi-urgent and non-urgent cases falling 6.8 percent, and non-urgent cases dropping by as much as 17.5 percent. Critical and emergency Category 1 and Category 2 cases are fully exempted from charges and given priority treatment, fully meeting the target; the compliance rate for treating Category 3 cases within 30 minutes also rose from 82 percent to 88.4 percent, showing that the efficiency of services for critical patients has improved along with the reallocation of resources. For severe and critical illnesses, the reform introduced an annual fee cap of HK$10,000 without a means test, providing protection for residents with serious or chronic illnesses and preventing impoverishment caused by illness. As of the end of last month, more than 20,650 patients had their applications approved. Lo Chung-mau stressed that after the implementation of the reform, the government's subsidy level for public healthcare services remains as high as 95 percent, with the share of co-payment by residents extremely low. Since the reform has been in place for less than a year, the impact of the annual fee cap on patients' use of services and payment situation remains to be seen, and it is difficult at this stage to fully assess the overall impact on the Hospital Authority's finances.