The Department of Health today announced that the Government will launch the Elderly Health Care Voucher Pilot Reward Scheme on Monday to promote primary healthcare and support the healthcare needs of the elderly population.

The pilot scheme aims to encourage eligible Hong Kong seniors aged 65 or above to use health care vouchers on designated primary healthcare services provided by the private healthcare service sector.

An estimated 1.7 million eligible elderly citizens stand to benefit from the pilot scheme to be implemented from Monday to December 31, 2026.

Under the pilot scheme, seniors who have accumulated the use of health care vouchers of $1,000 or more on designated primary healthcare purposes, such as disease prevention and health management services, from January to December in the same year will be automatically allotted a $500 reward into their voucher account. The reward can be used on the same designated primary healthcare purposes. 

Each elderly person can be allotted the reward once each year at most, and the reward for each year can be used until December 31 in the following year.

A special arrangement will be made in the first year of the pilot scheme, in which the period of accumulation will start on November 13 this year and end on December 31, 2024.

The department explained that there are four categories of designated primary healthcare services under the pilot scheme, with the first being services on disease prevention and follow-up/monitoring of long-term conditions provided by medical practitioners, Chinese medicine practitioners and dentists enrolled in the Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme.

The second category includes hypertension and diabetes mellitus screening as well as treatment phase services provided under the Chronic Disease Co-care Pilot Scheme.

The third category comprises personalised services and community rehabilitation programmes provided by district health centres or district health centre expresses, while the fourth includes outpatient services on preventive and follow-up or monitoring of long-term conditions provided by 11 designated outpatient medical centres of the University of Hong Kong - Shenzhen Hospital and the health centre operated by the hospital.

Senior citizens are also reminded to stay vigilant against scams. The department and healthcare service providers will never ask them to provide bank account information via phone calls or SMS messages, or to click on a web link for using the vouchers or reward.