Monday, February 28, 2011

Allow professional bodies to set fee guidelines

Published in Today Paper

From time to time, we read about excessive charges by professionals for legal, medical and other services that are levied on consumers. While some cases have been brought to the public's knowledge, I wonder how many other cases do not come to light.

We have now come to a stage where professionals appear to be free to charge what they like in a deregulated, free-market environment. How can consumers know what are reasonable charges and how they are protected?

I urge the Competition Commission to review its stand against professional bodies setting guidelines on professional fees. These guidelines allow consumers to know what the reasonable charges are and still negotiate with the providers for lower fees. The publication of guidelines by professional bodies should be allowed, so long as it is not mandatory on the professionals.

They also allow newly established firms to convince clients they are charging lower fees, as their charges can be compared against the guidelines. This will help the cause of free competition, for the benefit of consumers and ethical professionals. 
Letter from Tan Kin Lian
Posted by at

2 comments:

Tan Kin Lian said...

If there is a guideline on fees, I wonder how the guideline will say that a specialist can bill $100,000 for 1 hour of work?

March 01, 2011 6:54 AM
Benjamin said...

The specialists I have come across charge about $200 - $300 per consultation of about 10min. Extrapolate that and it still only comes up to $2,000 per hour tops.

Naturally, doctors will try to charge more if they know the client can afford it. No point asking an hdb-dweller to pay a five figure sum per consultation.

Do you know what makes me uneasy reading the saga? Its the perception of fellow doctors closing ranks and jumping over themselves to protect each other. How can one doctor say that the bill is reasonable and this is based on his experience and morality. I wonder what they have been feeding and teaching him at the elite school he must have come from.

Excuses, excuses. One of the lame excuses put up which the press has not picked up on is that the surgeon argued that her company's profit dropped in the year the $24 mil bill was not paid. It sounds like she runs the clinc as a company and so what is the relevance of that statement? Profitabiity of the company could have been lower but she still could have continued to pay herself a high wage.

One wonders why this issue was made public now. Pure coincidence or for MOH to milk the publicity of this capitalism bashing (which is well deserved, in my opinion).

March 01, 2011 10:06 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Blog Archive