It’s the beginning of the year!! 2009! And may it be a better year….
I was doing some year end accounting on mother’s expenses. The biggest expense being the medications because I bought it from a private clinic, thus the medication are not subsidised by the government.
So, in order to cut down the expenses, I intend to change the health provider from a private on to a public one. But the thing is, this private health providers are home care doctors who visit my mother at home. Mother being bedridden and not staying in a lift-landing apartment unit makes travelling to and fro the clinics or hospital a big chore.
I found Integrated Care Services , a helpful service initiated by MOH which provides step-down services and care for elderlies. They primarily coordinate and refers cases to nursing homes, day rehabilitation care centres, long term chronic care at home, etc. So I gave them a tinker.
My purpose of the call is to engage a home care doctor from ICS, so that I can get a prescription to be filled in any publicly-run pharmacies, in order to enjoy subsidized rate.
However, to my surprise, this is not possible. ICS can allocate a home care doctor as primary health care provider but their prescription will not enjoy the subsidised rate.
I asked why?
Because the health care providers that ICS recommends are typically charitable organisations and NOT public health care providers. These charitable organisations only provides subsidised rate to households that passes “Means Testing”.
However, if I bring my mother to Polyclinics, I get the doctor to prescribe her medication and get the medication at their pharmacy, I get the subsidized rate!!
So this means that I have to transfer my mother from her non-lift landing unit to the polyclinic, once every month with the help of an ambulance.
Means Testing are useful apparatus to determine subsidies to Singaporeans. However, it caters to the low income groups. But how about the middle income group?
