The Ministry of Health’s (MOH) mandatory medicine price display policy was meant to empower patients. Instead, it set off a power struggle between doctors, pharmacists, and the government — one that’s turning a basic transparency rule into a turf war, with patients caught in the crossfire.
I personally think the way things are developing is quite sickening.
As a consumer, I’m all for transparency. Even if many people aren’t aware of or don’t yet use the displayed price lists, I believe greater transparency will, over time, help patients make more informed decisions, especially as out-of-pocket health costs rise and insurers tighten reimbursements.
It’s also important to note that the policy itself isn’t particularly burdensome. Every doctor I interviewed, including those who protested the regulation at the May 6 Putrajaya rally, admitted there was no real issue with displaying prices. But instead of focusing on implementation, both doctors and pharmacists seized this moment to push broader agendas.
On the doctors’ side, we’ve seen a rollout of new charges in rapid succession. In Sabah, the Association of Private Practitioners Sabah (APPS) has recommended four additional fees: a facility fee (RM5-RM15), registration fee (RM5-RM10), regulatory compliance charge (RM5-RM20), and an optional prescription fee (RM5-RM10).
Similar moves are underway in Sarawak, Penang, Selangor/ KL, and Perak, with different state associations announcing or planning their own add-on charges every other day.
The Malaysia Competition Commission (MyCC) has since warned that collective decisions by doctors’ groups to introduce new fees in private medical clinics may breach the Competition Act 2010, as such actions could constitute price fixing and trigger enforcement action.
Doctors argue that these new costs reflect operational realities and increased compliance burdens. But the timing and similarity of these fees across states — capped consultation rates notwithstanding — signal more than just cost recovery.
In a statement, APPS invoked the concept of Nash equilibrium, suggesting that if all clinics raise fees together, no single provider is penalised. It’s a price coordination tactic dressed in economic theory, but the net effect is patients footing higher bills under the guise of “transparency”.
Others have used this opportunity to renew calls for long-overdue revisions to private general practitioner (GP) consultation fees that have been capped at RM10 to RM35 since 1992, the year I was born. It’s a fair and valid complaint. But the way it’s being fought, through indirect charges on patients and mounting political pressure, undermines public trust rather than building support for reform.
On the pharmacists’ side, the Malaysian Pharmacists Society (MPS) has submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, calling for dispensing and professional fees for pharmacists and a policy to make prescriptions mandatory for doctors. They argue that these reforms would shift the system away from profit-margin models, enable “ethical dispensing”, and give patients better information and choice.
Though MPS stopped short of explicitly calling for dispensing separation, its proposals inch in that direction. As with doctors, there is legitimacy to some of these ideas, particularly in recognising pharmacists’ clinical role. But in the current climate, they’re perceived less as reforms and more as strategic power grabs.
From the outside, it looks like both professions are using the price display rule as a proxy battlefield. For doctors, it’s about reclaiming lost ground through additional fees and louder demands for long-overdue fee revisions. For pharmacists, it’s about leveraging transparency momentum to formalise roles and financial recognition they’ve long sought.
Meanwhile, patients are caught in the middle — asked to pay more, navigate a confusing array of new charges, and choose between services shaped not by need but by professional turf. MOH must not let this devolve into a race to the bottom.
To regain control, the Ministry should communicate a clear reform timeline, detailing when consultation fees will be reviewed, how transparency will be enforced, and what broader structural reforms are being considered, including potential changes to prescribing and dispensing practices. Without this clarity, each group fills the vacuum with its own narrative.
The debate itself also needs to be reframed, not just by the MOH, but by all stakeholders. The focus should always be on patients, not providers. Every policy decision, professional demand, or regulatory adjustment should be guided by a single question: How does this improve access, affordability, and safety for patients?
The government should also have an inclusive task force comprising GPs, pharmacists, patients, and payors to chart a national roadmap for private primary care reform, especially as strengthening primary care is a central pillar of the Ministry’s Health White Paper.
Structural changes — whether fee restructuring, dispensing policies, or new care models — must be debated transparently and implemented systematically, not through backdoor price wars. This should have been the approach from the start.
Instead of bulldozing the price display mandate despite widespread resistance from GPs, the MOH could have honoured its earlier promise to revise GP consultation fees first.
That sequencing would have built trust and signalled fairness, rather than triggering the kind of defensive, reactionary responses we’re now seeing across both professions.
If this continues to escalate as a power struggle between two professions and Putrajaya, the people left paying the price — literally — will be ordinary patients.
If this is the reaction to a relatively simple price display rule, one can only imagine what the response will be when the Ministry rolls out more complex reforms like DRG-based payments or the Rakan KKM initiative, all in the name of affordability and transparency.
Without a coordinated, consultative, and transparent approach, we risk turning every reform into a battlefield — where patients bleed first and policies backfire or collapse under their own contradictions.
Alifah Zainuddin is a senior health writer at CodeBlue.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
