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2. Financial affordability–Pricing of health checks is a key determinant of service uptake in
the private sector

Respondents cited pricing as a key consideration when engaging in health screening and
management of chronic conditions. The high costs of the private sector may inhibit new
patients without insurance or who feel financially unprepared from partaking in the
proposed Scheme.

Survey results suggest that a variety of factors may impact patients’ WTP for the Scheme
and their financial capability to participate, including three main factors: monthly
household income, medical insurance status, and financial preparedness, measured by
the sufficiency of funds for unanticipated medical events. The Scheme should consider
varied co-payment prices against financial capacities of individuals that
adjust for these three factors that influence economic accessibility for individuals with a
low level of monthly household income, who are under-insured, and are financially
unprepared for unanticipated medical spending.

In addition, while the most commonly chosen WTP range is between HKD 51 and HKD
200, there remains great variability within and also outside of this range. One should not
be overly reliant on interpreting WTP when determining price structures, as these price
points are insufficient for capturing the affordability (economic accessibility) of the
Scheme. Therefore, we suggest tailoring the payment scheme for
management services to the individual patient, using factors such as
income level. Furthermore, to successfully boost the uptake of the Scheme, the
Government should consider stratifying the population based on the
criteria identified above and set out specific co-payment amounts for
each stratified population.

3. Acceptability–Promoting health literacy may boost uptake of the Scheme
Results indicate that segments of the public require additional efforts to boost health
literacy, including those who are aware of the benefits and/or risks of health screening yet
do not engage in regular screening. Fostering public education with specific focus on
prevention should target increasing the awareness of the consequences of undetected
and untreated HDH, with an aim of increasing the sense of urgency and perceived need
for disease prevention and early detection. Specifically, we found that general practitioners
and family doctors are likely in entrusted positions to enhance health literacy and follow-up
on behavioural changes amongst our target population. This observation is in synergy with
propositions made in Chapter 4.1, wherein private doctors are in a key position to identify
and empower patients to partake in screening and expand the concept of family doctors
to all Hong Kong citizens. As a means of increasing the willingness to join the Scheme and
increasing the acceptability of health-promoting services, we suggest leveraging on
medical professionals to increase population health literacy, particularly in
disease prevention and self-management.

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