PETALING JAYA, Dec 29 — The federal government can help reduce the cost of healthcare to the poor by utilising more assets in private clinics and hospitals like how it is being done in Selangor, the Medical Practitioners Coalition Association of Malaysia (MPCAM) urged today.

MPCAM deputy president Dr Raj Kumar Maharajah said the strategic partnership is pertinent to help reduce congestion in public healthcare facilities while providing affordable healthcare to the bottom 40 per cent household income group (B40) with a monthly income of RM2,537 or less.

"This has been more evident recently when the Ministry of Health spoke about a public-private partnership to tap these resources by the private sector which are underused, in order to decongest the public hospital and health clinics,” said Dr Raj Kumar.

According to Dr Raj Kumar, a good example of such public-private partnership is the "Peduli Sihat Scheme” introduce by the Selangor state government this year, which utilises private clinics to provide subsidised healthcare to the B40.

"The scheme has been well managed and successful with 205,346 visits to general practitioner clinics in the state of Selangor with claims amounting to RM 9,804,652.64.

He also pointed out the only problem facing such partnerships is the payment mechanism, which the scheme has successfully managed.

"The turnaround time for payment to doctors for services rendered and medicines are given is 11 days to doctors, better than any managed care organisations or third party administration before this,” he said.

Dr Raj said the program’s success has been recognised by participating practitioners and patients, who had urged the ministry and other state governments to implement such programmes to help the poor.

The scheme functions by giving an annual entitlement of RM500 to each family, and RM200 to each individual aged 21 and above who makes less than RM1,500 monthly.

It was reported that the scheme serves over 1 million people in Selangor and was set to increase to RM350 and RM700 for individuals and families respectively from next year.