KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 13 — A government council has refused to harmonise private clinic general practitioners’ (GP) consultation fees with their hospital counterparts pending further studies on its financial impact to the public.
The National Cost of Living Action Council (NACCOL) chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail ordered the Health Ministry and the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) to conduct yet another study, even though a regulatory impact analysis, a study on the impact on the consumer price index by the Health Ministry, MMA, and the Department of Statistics Malaysia, and three stakeholders’ engagements under the previous Barisan Nasional and current Pakatan Harapan (PH) governments have already been conducted.
“They just ‘refuse’ to make a decision. This is a delay tactic,” a source familiar with the negotiations told CodeBlue.
Some 7,000 private GPs throughout the country have been calling for their consultation fees to be raised from the 1992 rate of RM10 to RM35, to the scale of RM30 to RM125 earned by their counterparts in private hospitals.
Family doctors have warned PH that the solo GP practice will eventually die if their fees remain stagnant, especially in the face of impending regulations controlling the price of medicines, which they say is their main source of income.
GP fees are regulated under the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act 1998.
