We thank Mr He Tian Lin for his letter (“An elderly couple’s lament of the Pioneer Generation”, 3 September).
To ensure a holistic assessment of the overall financial means of Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS) applicants so that CHAS subsidies are better targeted towards those who need it more, the Ministry of Health (MOH) uses per capita household income (PCHI) for means-testing.
We recognise that there may be special circumstances where the use of PCHI is not reflective of the actual family means and financial situation. For such cases, the applicants may appeal through the CHAS hotline at 1800-275-2427 (1800-ASK-CHAS).
We had previously reached out to Mr He’s daughter in August 2022 to seek more information and urged the family to get in touch with the relevant supporting documents for us to better evaluate and assess the application. To date we have not received the documents. We have reached out to Mr He’s family members once again on this.
Teh Shi-Hua (Ms)
Director (Subsidy & Subvention)
Healthcare Finance Division
Ministry of Health