Private ward heart patients save time and money

According to the American Heart Association, the build up of plaque can reduce blood flow to your heart and cause chest discomfort. Sometimes a blood clot can form or worsen and completely block blood flow, which if left untreated can lead to a heart attack.

Coronary angioplasty is a commonly performed procedure to open up blocked arteries to restore normal flow to the heart muscle.  A thin catheter containing an inflatable balloon is passed into the coronary artery, where it is inflated, pushing the plaque to the side and stretching the artery open.

In some patients, a stent, attached to the balloon, locks the artery in place after it is opened. The procedure takes one to three hours and patients experience almost no pain. Typically patients will need to stay overnight in the hospital after the procedure is done.

For Mr Ng, a 55-year-old resident of Singapore, it happened one day in 2014 while he was sitting at his breakfast table. His first reaction was to contact Dr Paul Chiam at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, whom he had seen before while receiving treatment at a public hospital. 

“After I finished eating breakfast that day I didn’t feel well,” Mr Ng says. “So, I called Dr Paul immediately and made an appointment to see him.  I assumed it was related to artery blockage, and we ascertained the problem very quickly.”

The next day Mr Ng underwent angioplasty and had a stent inserted to remove the blockage.  He had done the procedure once before at a public hospital, but this time, he chose to have the procedure done at Mount Elizabeth Hospital.

Had he returned to a restructured hospital, he would have waited weeks, instead of only one day, to schedule the procedure. “The cost at the two places was comparable, but at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, it was definitely faster,” he says.

According to Dr Paul, in a restructured hospital, the bill for a typical angioplasty for a private patient can cost around S$20,000, with an average waiting time of one to two weeks for a clinic appointment. In contrast, a private patient of Dr Paul’s at Mount Elizabeth can expect to pay around S$18,000 for the same procedure and be able to schedule an appointment within one to two days.

As Mr Tan, a retired company director in his late 60s residing in Singapore found out, the level of service and personal attention that comes with a private hospital can also be surprisingly affordable.

After Mr Tan had gotten angioplasty done previously at a public hospital, he was not keen to go back.  “[The hospital] wasn’t able to tell me exactly what went wrong.”

He also found out that getting treatment done at a public hospital wasn’t as affordable as he expected.

“Originally I thought, I’m a Singapore citizen, so going to a public hospital would be more economical. But actually, when I went there, it was the complete opposite. [MediShield] did not cover the treatment, and the wait times were frustrating,” Mr Tan says.

When he experienced shortness of breath again following his initial angioplasty, Mr Tan got a referral from his original doctor to see Dr Paul at Mount Elizabeth Hospital. Within a few days, Mr Tan was able to get his blockage assessed by Dr Paul and receive an additional angioplasty. After the procedure, he felt much better, and was amazed at the speed and quality of the service.

“At [a public hospital], you’d have to make two separate appointments, one for the exam, and a later one for surgery,” he says, “each time you’d have to wait several hours.”

Better still, Mr Tan found that this more efficient service that allowed him to also have cost savings.  “The prices for [the consultations] were cheaper than at a public hospital,” he says. “Hard to believe, but public hospitals in Singapore are actually costlier than private.”

Dr Paul T.L. Chiam is a consultant cardiologist with a subspecialty interest in interventional cardiology. He is in private practice at The Heart and Vascular Centre at Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre in Singapore.

www.mountelizabeth.com.sg