Marketing gimmicks and misleading advertisements by private hospitals

[True Believer]

MOH must keep a closer eye on marketing gimmicks and misleading advertisements by private hospitals, which promote fixed price surgical packages with claims of giving patients more certainty in their final bill, in view of the vast cost variations currently seen.

 

[True Believer]

The fixing of surgical package prices is just another marketing strategy to attract more patients to utilise the hospital’s services; many will find themselves eventually paying above and beyond the published prices owing to ‘complications’, utilising items not listed under standard consumables or in the ‘exclusion list’, and perhaps an additional day’s stay because the patient is deemed unfit for discharge by the doctor.