2 Jan 2009
A spokesman for the Department of Health said today (January 2) that the response to Health Care Voucher Scheme (HCVS) was so far encouraging.
Up to 5pm today, there are 469 transactions of health care vouchers. Among them, some 73 per cent of them claimed one to two vouchers.
The spokesman was pleased to learn that most eligible elderly did not rush into claiming the vouchers within a short period and used the vouchers whenever necessary.
He said more than 2200 applications from health care providers had been received since the enrollment commenced in September 2008.
"Among them, 1783 providers have completed enrolment process and can start offering service under the scheme," the spokesman said.
The spokesman understood that there might be some cases which have encountered difficulties when using e-Health system, the electronic platform for HCVS.
"Similar to many other internet services, individual cases of encountering hiccups, especially in the early implementation stage is not unusual.
"These cases have been fixed by the Health Care Voucher Unit," he said.
However, the overall feedback from health care providers and elderly on the design, testing and operation of the system were positive, he added.
"We appreciated opinions from health care workers and members of the public on HCVS and will consider them seriously during the evaluation process.
"The Government will closely monitor the implementation of the scheme. Follow up actions will be taken as deem necessary," the spokesman said.
An interim evaluation of the scheme will be conducted after one year while a comprehensive one will be carried out after the completion of the scheme in three year.