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Stakeholders’ voices

Insurance companies are unable to broaden the coverage for
insurance products due to the lack of transparency in medical
pricing. Transparent prices, if provided, can be reflected in a
lowered and more accurate premium, creating a win-win situation.

Private service provider

The [Voluntary Health Insurance] Scheme is complicated and
very expensive, with some terms not being covered.
Policymaker

Subtheme 3.3 – Strategies to improve mechanisms within existing health financing
system. Citing the unhealthy competition between insurance providers and private doctors,
some stakeholders called for further development of the insurance sector in Hong Kong. An
acknowledged attempt was the recent development of fixed-price medical packages,
now available in certain private hospitals. Apart from resolving conflicts and reducing
tensions between insurance providers and private doctors, this example also resolves the
problem of the lack of transparency of private services. More efforts, however, are required to
further promote such practice.

Stakeholders’ voices

Everybody wants to pay for health insurance if it really helps, and if you reduce the
premium, they will buy it. The elderly [have] a lot of purchasing power, and so there
are marketing opportunities, but the insurance providers are pushing people away.

Academic

Insurance providers now compete for profit with private
doctors, creating tension and little trust.

Academic

Instead of competing for profit with the doctors, we
(insurance providers) are going to collaborate with them.
We start by rolling out medical packages–supporting
each other to increase the pricing transparency.
Private service provider

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