Most A&E patients will pay more

Marco Lam and Cheng Wong

Public hospitals are considering implementing a two-tier charge for accident and emergency services, sources say.

Under the plan, patients falling under the critical and emergency categories would receive treatment for free, while urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent patients would be charged more than the current HK$180 fee, they said.

The news comes ahead of expected changes to public hospital fees that are likely to be unveiled by the government in the coming weeks.

Apart from the rumored two-tier charge, it was said earlier that authorities are considering having patients with non-urgent medical needs pay separate charges for laboratory tests and scans.

Public hospital patients currently pay as little as HK$180 per visit to an A&E department, with the fee remaining unchanged since 2017.

Sources previously suggested that authorities could increase the fee to between HK$300 and HK$400.

According to the Hospital Authority, patients are grouped into five categories under a triage system that assesses their clinical conditions. The categories include critical, emergency, urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent.

The HA's service targets specify that all critical patients will receive immediate treatment, and emergency and urgent patients will be prioritized for treatment upon arrival at A&E departments.

In 2024, urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent patients constituted approximately 95.8 percent of all A&E attendances, meaning a majority of patients would have to pay more in the future should the plan go through.

Some people expressed concern about affordability, while others saw the price increase as reasonable but were unsure how fees would be determined based on urgency.