Enhancing Medishield: Better Coverage for Singaporeans

As you may have already know by now, MOH is undergoing a major enhancement exercise on the medishield coverage for all Singaporeans. These changes will impact all existing medishield plans members as well as CPF members holding private integrated shield plan coverage from the major 5 insurers namely: NTUC, GE, Prudential, AIA and Aviva.

The new Private Integrated Shield plans will most probably be launched in the month of Mar 2013 and with some standardisation to the types of plans and benefits offered by the different insurers, the public will now have a easier time making comparison between plans and similar plans offered by different insurers.

That being said, most of these changes has been initiated by MOH which makes some long awaited changes to the basic Medishield plan. Do read the abstract from MOH website below or follow the link to get the full article published on MOH website:

"The Ministry of Health (MOH) held a public consultation in July and August to solicit feedback on the proposed MediShield enhancements to improve coverage and make MediShield more inclusive.

2     All the proposed enhancements received strong support from the vast majority of respondents (see Table 1 in Annex A for details). MOH will thus implement all the proposed enhancements.

3     MOH will also consider the extension of coverage to congenital and neonatal conditions as part of a broader review on supporting healthcare costs for children. This will tie in with on-going deliberations on encouraging marriage and parenthood as well as the “Our Singapore Conversation” (OSC) taking place to shape a consensus on the future of Singapore. For example, Prime Minister suggested earlier that a Medisave account could be set up for newborns and the Government could consider providing a start-up amount for childhood medical expenses. These ideas, including the proposed extension to cover congenital and neonatal conditions under MediShield will be surfaced for discussion at various OSC platforms.

4     Members of public also shared many additional ideas for further improvements to the MediShield scheme, some of which will be adopted for implementation in this round of review (see Table 2 in Annex A for details). Among them, MOH will be increasing the Medisave withdrawal limits for premiums, to fully cover basic MediShield premiums at all ages. MOH will also be removing the maximum entry age of 75 to help more uninsured but healthy elderly obtain insurance coverage. Other suggestions, such as for MediShield to cover outpatient treatment will require further detailed study as it is a major shift in MediShield’s focus and could have significant impact on the premiums.

MediShield Enhancements Effective From 1 March 2013

5     In summary, MOH, in consultation with the public, will make the following enhancements and changes to MediShield from 1 March 2013:

Proposed by MOH

a. Increase the maximum coverage age to 90;

b. Extend coverage to inpatient psychiatric treatment at $100 per day up to 35 days per year;

c. Increase the policy year and lifetime limits from $50,000 to $70,000 and from $200,000 to $300,000 respectively;

d. Extend coverage to short-stay wards in Emergency Departments; and

e. Increase the Class B2/C deductibles moderately by $500 for those aged 80 and below¹.

Additional changes arising from public feedback

a. Increase the Medisave withdrawal limits for MediShield and Integrated Shield Plans premiums from $800 to $1,000 for those aged 76 to 80 and from $1,150 to $1,200 for those above age 80; and

 b. Remove the MediShield maximum entry age of 75 to enable healthy uninsured elderly to obtain coverage.

Update of Premiums : read the full article here.

a blog on: Financial Planning Advice - Christopher Pua