I refer to the explanation given by ING's Phoon Yew Seng in response to concerns raised by doctors regarding ING's employee benefits scheme in Malaysiakini's report, ING de-lists 2 private hospitals, docs cry foul, and would like to share some of my views.

As a business owner, I have examined several employee benefits scheme in the past as it is one of the things employees expect of a good employer. I opted to go with ING on the basis that my employees and I can go to hospitals nearby, mostly Pantai Hospital, to seek treatment without worrying about whether we have sufficient cash on us. For a long time, I have not exceeded the "maximum coverage" of my scheme and the doctors have treated us well.

As such, Phoon's use of "stretching the healthcare dollar" to obtain discounts from doctors and hospitals only cuts my access to these doctors unless I pay cash, which makes me wonder if I should be going with them at all? Should this proposal go through, I would have to wait for them to reimburse me for paying my employees' healthcare expenses first.

This brings me to my following question: How long until I get paid back? As I do not exceed my maximum coverage, I pay a fixed fee. How does it really help me unless ING gives me back the balance of my coverage?

My view of this situation is simple. ING may be facing thinner profit margins and the industry is getting more competitive. They are probably not able to raise the fees of their scheme or they will lose customers as there are many other agents from whom I can obtain a variety of schemes from.

As such, this move to ask discounts from doctors and hospitals may perhaps lower the amount of payments they will have to make to its clients. This means that they would be able to achieve growth in revenues. But this comes at the expense of the ease and access of healthcare. It is definitely not "patient centred".