bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Lilian Goh

Medical fees are set to increase as some doctors pass on part of their soaring professional indemnity insurance costs to patients.
The Medical Protection Society, which offers professional indemnity insurance to most doctors, recently told the Medical Association that insurance subscription rates next year would increase from 3 to 30 per cent.
In the private sector, obstetricians and doctors in high-risk specialties, such as neurosurgery and spinal surgery, will face the biggest rise, at 30 per cent.
Private obstetricians, who pay the largest annual subscription rate, at HK$250,380, will have to pay more than HK$325,000 next year.
Their rate had already jumped from HK$209,500 last year. The society said the increase for next year was due to an increase in claims by an average 20 per cent.
In 2004, there were six cases per 1,000 members but last year there were 14. It said there were also a number of large claims awaiting settlement, including one estimated at HK$45 million.
The largest claim paid last year was HK$27 million.
'It is inevitable that private doctors will have to pass on some of the higher costs to patients,' said Choi Kin, the association's president. 'Doctors also face higher costs due to increasing rents for their clinics and inflation.'
He doubted obstetricians would have to drastically raise their fees because the private market for deliveries had been quite good recently. 'If  doctors have a large enough customer volume,  they don't need to charge each much more to cover the higher costs.'
Private doctors in low-risk specialties, such as community medicine and dermatology, will be least affected, with a 3 per cent increase from  HK$20,865 a year. The rate for interns and public doctors will rise by 3 to 5 per cent from the present range of HK$2,200 to HK$12,800.
Tse Hung-hing,  a  Medical Association council member, said it was natural for the number of  disputes and claims to increase because of a global trend of higher awareness of patients' rights.
He said some specialists in obstetrics and gynaecology might consider only practising gynaecological treatments  and stopping their delivery services. He added that the higher insurance fees would affect younger private doctors the most because they might not yet have a stable volume of patients.
Private obstetrician Law Chi-lim  said  injuries to newborns  could be lifelong, thus  the  high claims.
He also  said that it was easy for parents to apply for legal aid to sue obstetricians  if they made the application in  their baby's name  as the Legal Aid Department  accepted applications  based on assets.



Patients set to bear the brunt of rising cost of insurance