The Hospital Authority (HA) has urged Hong Kong residents with financial difficulties to avoid misusing public healthcare services to apply for medical fee waivers.
A spokesperson for the HA said residents do not need to rush to Family Medicine Clinics or visit Accident and Emergency Departments to apply or make unnecessary appointments solely for the purpose of getting the waivers.
These valuable medical resources should be reserved for residents with genuine medical needs, the spokesperson said in a statement on Sunday.
The HA issued the statement in response to a media report, citing a community service organization, that a resident who did not have a follow-up appointment at a public hospital was unable to apply for medical fee waivers.
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The HA clarified that it proactively assists eligible individuals in securing the waivers before they access public healthcare services.
It now accepts applications for medical fee waivers from patients with scheduled appointments within two months.
Individuals with scheduled appointments beyond two months, or those without any appointments, do not need to apply at this stage, the HA added.
It also pointed out that the case cited in the news report showed that when individuals have financial difficulties and require public healthcare services, they can obtain approval for medical fee waivers on the same day, even for next-day clinic appointments.
The application process is neither complicated nor difficult, the HA added.
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Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau said last month that the number of approved medical fee waivers for low-income families ballooned to over 91,000 in just over two months from early November until Jan 21 under the reform of public healthcare fees.
This figure far exceeded the annual number of approximately 14,000 patients who were approved to receive medical fee waivers in the past, he said.
While new hospital fees were introduced under the reform starting Jan 1, the HA also expanded its medical fee waiver mechanism, increasing the number of eligible low-income individuals from 300,000 to 1.4 million.
