The Hong Kong Federation of Insurers (HKFI) says that it is conducting an internal holistic review of the current healthcare ecosystem and will be providing recommendations from an insurance perspective.
In its March 2025 Monthly Brief, the HKFI said, “With rising medical costs and an aging population increasing demand for healthcare services, improving price transparency for these services has become increasingly urgent and essential. It is particularly important for the insurance industry which manages the risk pool for the insuring public.
“The escalating medical costs will weaken the sustainability of the pool, making medical insurance unaffordable in the long run and ultimately increasing the burden on the public healthcare system.”
The HKFI pointed to a research paper, titled “Price Transparency in Healthcare: Fostering Consumer Trust and Value” released by the Consumer Council in March, saying that the study report effectively highlights the core of the issue.
“Their findings and recommendations align closely with our observations and requests,” said the HKFI, “We firmly believe that all parties in the ecosystem, service providers and insured individuals alike, play a crucial role in ensuring the medical insurance pool remains viable and sustainable.”
The Council undertook the study to identify possible areas for improvement and put forward recommendations for enhancing the price transparency in the private healthcare sector. Findings from the studies cover the various stages of the patient journey, namely, searching for price information, exploring medical packages, obtaining budget estimates, and resolving price disputes.
Issues
1.Searching for Price Information
- Relevant price information was hard to understand/insufficient/absent
- Lack of clarity regarding accountability for providing or explaining price information
- Historical bill sizes statistics – Low awareness, not up-to-date nor user-friendly
- Unclear charging mechanism for doctor’s fees and private hospital charges/day procedure centre charges
2. Exploring Medical Packages
- Limited availability of medical packages among the 30 common and non-emergency treatments/procedures
- Insufficient transparency regarding additional charges on medical packages
- Challenges in making like-for-like comparisons of medical packages
- Obtaining Budget Estimates
- Limited provision of detailed and written budget estimates
- ???????Lack of identification for other specialists and anaesthetists in budget estimate
3. Resolving Price Disputes
- Limited explanation for price discrepancies
- Consumers seldom lodged complaints for various considerations
Consumer Council’s recommendations
To promote a more transparent private healthcare sector in Hong Kong and ensure that it keeps up with the times, the Council puts forward five recommendations to empower consumers to advocate for themselves and foster greater consumer trust in private healthcare facilities (PHFs), for consideration and discussion by stakeholders and the public.
1. Improve consumers’ accessibility to price information with a search tool
2. Promote the use of packaged charges
3. Require the provision of a clear and written budget estimate
4. Enhance the current regulatory framework on price provision, and complaint handling mechanism on price matters
5. Strengthen consumer education through multi-channels and collaborative effort
From October 2022 to December 2024, the Council carried out the study that encompassed 13 PHs providing the 30 common and non-emergency treatments/procedures recommended by the Department of Health, and 128 DPCs providing anaesthetic/endoscopic/surgical procedures, which are more relevant to the 30 treatments/procedures.
Through this study, the Council hopes to raise public awareness of issues pertaining to price transparency in Hong Kong’s private healthcare sector, and calls for collaborative effort among the Government, industry professionals, stakeholders, and consumers to adopt the recommendations progressively, with a view to narrowing the existing gaps in consumer protection, empowering consumers by reducing information asymmetry and ultimately leading to a more transparent, trustworthy and accountable healthcare environment.
To read the HK Consumer Council’s “Price Transparency in Healthcare: Fostering Consumer Trust and Value” report, please click on this link.