HOSPITAL bills of 71 medical conditions or procedures are listed on the Health Ministry's website, of which private hospitals contributed to only 11.

Given the gap in data, the ministry announced on Thursday that it would push through legislation to make it mandatory for the private hospital to make public their bill sizes.

While private doctors agree that patients should be given the knowledge to make informed choices when it comes to picking a doctor, they argue that price is not the only thing they look for.

Dr Lee Hong Huei, deputy president of the Singapore Operations Division at ParkwayHealth and CEO of Gleneagles Hospital, said it is not just bill size but clinical outcomes that helps patients choose.

'Bill size data should never be the only means for patients to consider. Patients tend to look specific treatments and the competence of the specialist in delivering it,' he said.

Many specialists say they provide personal and customised care, so 'the difficulty lies in the dictum that there is no 'one-size-fits-all' in health care, he added.

Professor Tan Ser Kiat, Group CEO of SingHealth and CEO of the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) agreed that clinical outcome of different conditions or procedures should be published in tandem with hospital bill sizes.

'If a doctor is the cheapest in town but his outcome is 90 per cent failure, then ...' he said.

Five years ago, MOH moved to make public the size of hospital bills - which triggered almost immediate price cuts at public hospitals that had higher prices than others.

The 11 conditions listed online which the private sector contributed to include removal of breast lump, Caesarean delivery, Lasik and knee replacement.

These were volunteered by the private hospitals because they are classified under Diagnosis-Related Group (DRG), a system that classifies cases expected to have similar hospital resource use.

'These are carried out by doctors and surgeons working under the private hospitals themselves, making it easier to collate data,' Dr Lee explained.

Read the full report in Monday's edition of The Straits Times.