Health subsidy vouchers available from May 1

Starting from May 1, each eligible Macau resident will be provided with a healthcare subsidy of MOP600, and all Macau residents holding valid Macau SAR Permanent Resident Identity Card before April 30 2023 are eligible to receive the vouchers, the executive council announced on Friday.

The voucher usage period is two years, from May 1, 2022 to April 30, 2024, and the rules for issuing the healthcare vouchers of 2022 are the same as last year.

The total value of the subsidy is MOP432,665,000, the government said.

The administration has said that residents can directly use the e-purse vouchers by presenting their identity card during medical consultation. Residents can also transmit the e-payment voucher in whole or in part to a spouse, their parents, or children of the beneficiary who hold a Macau SAR Permanent Resident Identity Card.

As with the previous schemes, the electronic healthcare vouchers can only be used for services provided by healthcare professionals who are members of the Healthcare Subsidy Scheme; it is not applicable to healthcare professionals subsidized by the MSAR Government. 

Moreover, the government added that the electronic monitoring of the issuance of healthcare vouchers has been effective in recent years and that fewer cases of infringement have been recorded. 

“Residents and healthcare professionals should make proper use of healthcare vouchers. Regarding the cases of falsification of medical records to defraud the value of healthcare vouchers, the Health Bureau will investigate and impose a penalty upon the offenders in accordance with the law,” the authority said.

Back in 2020, the government said that from 3,711 inspections of private clinics and medical institutions under the scheme, 504 were referred to the Public Prosecution Office for allegedly defrauding the government through the illegal use of the voucher. JW