KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 13 — Did you find the new online list of estimated prices for 26 common medical procedures at Malaysia’s private hospitals useful to plan your budget, and to decide on your medical insurance and healthcare needs?

Malaysia’s insurance and takaful industry last month released its first-ever list of expected prices for procedures such as cataract surgery (RM8,400), angiogram, colonoscopy, endoscopy, wrist and forearm fractures, total knee replacement (up to RM33,400), based on what private hospitals had billed insurers in 2024.

Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM) CEO Mark O’Dell said the insurance and takaful industry had included these 26 procedures in the price guide, as these were the most common.

“The 26 medical procedures and treatments featured in the reference price guide were selected primarily based on utilisation volume, focusing on services that are most commonly accessed by patients in private healthcare facilities.

“The industry views this as a foundational step in Phase One with a limited number of procedures and may consider expanding the guide in the future,” he said in an email response to Malay Mail, referring to this first-ever price guide as “phase one” as there are future plans to publish further editions.

He confirmed it was possible that the price guide will have more than these 26 procedures: “Yes, the industry is open to expanding the price guide to include additional procedures in the future.”

“This price guide is expected to be updated annually to reflect the latest available data,” he said.

Asked if the insurance and takaful industry would keep older annual editions of the price guide publicly available for the public to compare with newer editions, he said this has not been decided yet: “At this stage, no final decision has been made about maintaining prior year results (previous edition).”

Malay Mail also asked if the insurance and takaful industry will be keeping track of any price changes of the medical procedures and treatments at private hospitals, and O’Dell said the industry is open to considering this idea.

“While we track price cost changes for hospital stays on an overall level, it has not been decided whether to track individual procedure price changes.

“The industry remains open to exploring this approach if it is assessed to provide meaningful value and greater transparency for the public,” he said.

The price guide was a joint effort by Malaysia’s insurance and takaful companies in collaboration with the industry’s three associations (LIAM, the General Insurance Association of Malaysia (PIAM), and the Malaysian Takaful Association (MTA)).

Here’s a quick summary of the typical bill amounts for the 26 medical procedures and treatments in Malaysia’s private hospitals, based on 2024 data of actual medical insurance claims:

 

For the full 129-page list of price estimates, click on any of these three links:  

•    Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM) 

•    Malaysian Takaful Association (MTA) 

•    General Insurance Association of Malaysia (PIAM) 

You can even download the price guide as a PDF for easy offline access, or if you want to keep it to compare with future editions of the price guide.