KUALA LUMPUR: The National Association of Malaysian Life Insurance and Family Takaful Advisors (Namlifa) has urged the government to address the significant price disparity between insured and cash-paying patients at private hospitals, warning that such discrepancies could make medical insurance unsustainable.
Its president Krishnan Appanu said the government should also mull setting up a national social insurance system, regulating hospital pricing and, more importantly, possessing the political will to ensure profits do not overshadow patient welfare.
Krishnan lamented that this issue, which has persisted for years, places an undue financial burden on policyholders while allowing private hospitals to inflate charges for insured patients.
“It is an open secret that private hospitals impose higher charges on insured patients compared to those who pay out of pocket,” he told Bernama.
Krishnan urged the Health Ministry to step in and regulate hospital pricing to ensure fairness, adding that Namlifa has been receiving complaints from policyholders about inconsistencies in billing.
“The government must take immediate action to monitor and standardise these charges (as) without intervention, insurance premiums will continue to rise, making healthcare coverage increasingly unaffordable,” he added.
