Effectiveness of Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme and Private Healthcare Providers in Hong Kong

Abstract

Facing the problem of ageing population, the Department of Health of Hong Kong launched an Elderly Care Voucher Pilot Scheme in 2009 and it has become a regular programme called Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme (EHCVS) since 2014. In 2019, vouchers that worth HK$2000 were given to elders aged 65 or above and the accumulation limit was $8000. It aims at easing the current heavy reliance on public healthcare services and encouraged elders to choose private healthcare services with the partial subsidy. However, despite the older adults have high awareness of the voucher scheme and vouchers utilisation rate has reached 90%, they still tend to spend vouchers on acute disease treatment. This shows that EHCVS is still ineffective in changing the behaviour of older adults in using vouchers for disease management and preventive care in the private sector. It may be due to inadequate knowledge of the use of vouchers among recipients and ineffective promotion of the aim of the scheme. This chapter reviews and analyses the factors affecting the use of elderly health care vouchers and suggests feasible recommendations to the government in order to sustain the effectiveness of the scheme.