The hike in medical consultation and procedure fees gazetted by the Health Ministry last December was done to protect the people and it was not done in secret, Health Minister Dr S Subramaniam said today.

"There is nothing secretive about it," Subramaniam told reporters at a press conference on the matter, which was raised by Malaysiakini yesterday.

He said the ministry amended the fees in order to impose a maximum fee cap so as to protect the people, while the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) had demanded higher increases.

"The MMA wanted a 30 percent increase, but we settled for an average 14 percent increase.

"The long delay was because of disagreements between the ministry and the stakeholders. But at the end of the day, the ministry put its foot down and gazetted it anyway," Subramaniam said.

He insisted that consumers could still dictate the fees in the private medical industry, asking them to choose practitioners who charged lower rather than those who charged according to the maximum cap.

'Doctors normally charge in the mid-range'

"There is no minimum cap here. And from my experience, doctors normally change in the mid-range and not the maximum amount. Only then will people come back to them," Subramaniam, a doctor by profession, said.

He said that since the amendment raising the medical consultation and procedure fees was only done to the 13th schedule of the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act 1998, there was no need to present the matter to Parliament.

"It is a schedule, not an amendment to the Act," he said.

Subramaniam stressed that prior to 2002, the MMA had self-regulated the medical fees schedule as this power was not vested with the Health Ministry until that year.

He said that in 2010, MMA had requested for a review of the fee schedule, which the government agreed to.

"To be fair, their request was fairly logical. Inflation of prices over the years was beyond 20 percent, and so they were asking for a 30 percent increase," he said.

He said the government decided on a 14 percent rate and that proposal was tabled in the cabinet in 2012.

"There is no such thing as not informing the public. The previous health minister Liow Tiong Lai did announce this at a press conference in July 2012," Subramaniam added.

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