SMA withdraws guidelines on fees

Angry doc has blogged about this.

Dr Huang has blogged about this.

And so SMA has withdrawn its guidelines on fees for clinics because the guidelines go against competition laws.

For the uninitiated, the guideline on fees was published by SMA at the request of MOH several years ago in response to complaints from the public that they were overcharged.

MOH tasked SMA to come up with a guideline on fees so that the public can be aware of what the upper limits of charges should be. Do note that I wrote upper limits.

As for doctors who were charging way below the guidelines, no action was taken against them. (There are quite a number of people out there who keep saying that doctors are a cartel and we set our own fees and decide how much to charge and how much we earn. But in most cartels that I know, there is no such thing as a cartel member undercutting the rest and getting away with it)

I also wonder how many people out there actually are aware that such a guideline exists? Do people know that public display of the guidelines at all clinics used to be a requirement under the Private Hospitals and Medical Clinics Act and Regulations? How many patients bothered to look at it?

In all of the cases where I actually used the guidelines on display, it involved explaining to patients that my $10 consultation fee was far below the recommended $20-$30 by SMA. To which they would exclaim "Wah you doctors want to rob people ar? $20-$30 just to talk to you?!!!"

I blogged about this before in 2006 to show that consultation fees for GPs had been dropping since 1998, especially if you count inflation. And this was if GPs had been following the guidelines on fees from SMA in 1998 and then following the increases in the next revision in 2006! (Hey even the Admin service had their last revision of salaries in 2000! So that's a 6 year interval whereas for SMA's guidelines on fees we waited 8 years to revise it!!!!)

I dare say that the majority of GP clinics were not charging according to the guidelines on fees. And despite the revision in 2006, few clinics actually increased their consultation fees after the revision was released.

For those who are interested you can read my analysis on the guidelines on fees here.

It might also serve as a free online old copy of the 2006 guideline on fees for you to refer to lest you think your doctor may be overcharging you.