KUALA LUMPUR: Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad plans to introduce a value-based healthcare delivery approach to address the issue of rising private hospital charges.
He said that under this approach, patients would pay based on the quality of service received, rather than the current fee-for-service model, which charges for each service rendered.
“With fee-for-service, if a patient has insurance, regardless of their condition, the hospital may conduct multiple tests, procedures and so on, and the total bill will reflect all these charges.
“In value-based healthcare, for example, if the patient has a hernia and the hospital is efficient, they would charge a single fee for the procedure, known as herniorrhaphy,” he said.
He said this when winding up the committee-stage debate on the Supply (Budget) Bill 2025 for the ministry in the Dewan Rakyat today.
The issue of rising hospital charges and medical insurance premiums was raised by several Members of Parliament, who called on the Health Ministry (MOH) to address the matter.
Dzulkefly noted that under the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act 1998 (Act 586), MOH is only empowered to regulate consultation fees charged by medical specialists but cannot control other charges imposed by private hospital operators.
Earlier in his speech, Dzulkefly became emotional when responding to a concern raised by Riduan Rubin (Independent-Tenom) regarding patients who had died due to the financial burden of healthcare costs and transportation for repeated hospital visits.
“I am reminded of the mantra or principle of ‘leave no one behind’ in achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). It is the aspiration of every health minister to uphold this principle,” he said.
