Will fee benchmarks stem S’pore’s rising tide of healthcare inflation?

Prof Eric Finkelstein, Director of the Lien Centre for Palliative Care at Duke NUS Medical School, noted that while published fee benchmarks for private sector professional fees will have the intended effect on cost containment, the upward pressure on prices will continue due to increasingly generous insurance coverage, an aging population, and rising rates of chronic disease, owing in large part to poor diets and inactivity. He opined that addressing these risk factors would be the surest way to contain rising medical costs.

• TODAY, 18 December 2018