Controversial health care voucher scheme failing elderly, review finds

Elderly people will be restricted in the way they use their annual health care vouchers after a review found the controversial pilot scheme was not meeting the objective of promoting preventive medical care.

This comes as the government considers increasing the amount of the vouchers, HK$250 a year at present, and extending them to people some years under the threshold age of 70 - and as users complain that some health care providers charge more when they use the vouchers.

A person familiar with the review said that in future recipients would be required to use the vouchers for designated health-prevention consultations or programmes.

The three-year pilot scheme for people aged over 70 was launched in January 2009 in the hope that it would encourage patients to use private services and have a family doctor for regular consultation and advice.

Yet after 21 months, both doctors and patients have complained that the vouchers have not promoted primary care in the way the government wanted.

'The main direction of the review is to make the scheme more focused on preventive health. In the future, some or all of the vouchers will be used only on health assessments or vaccinations and many options are being considered,' the person said. 'Now the use of the vouchers is too general - many patients just use them for consultations for a common cold.'