Thanks to all the encouragement by the government and media about subsidised medical packages, i also decided to pay polyclinic a visit. It looks scary whenever i see long queues from the outside... But the truth may not be that bad, and you will never know until you join the queues.
I take queue at around 7.15am, go for breakfast and returns around 7.45am. There were about 70+ patients before me. Wait a little while, did my registration, then queue for consultation. Takes about 15 mins. After consultation, go to queue for dispensary, that depends in the queue, could wait another 20 mins.
So this is an account of what i did, which is not too bad. Polyclinic is just a few block away from my house, and i am an early bird. Polyclinic starts at 8am but one can take queue from 7am. Registration starts at around 7.30am, so depending on your queue no, you could wait there or go run errands and come back later.
After collecting medicine, one could queue for payment or go to self payment kiosk, very fast as usually no queue. Tax invoice will be printed at the kiosk. If you have a MC just bring the invoice amd MC to the payment counter and the staff there will stamp for you. Then you are ready to go.
Now lets come to the most important part, how much is the bill? Or rather how much is the savings? See picture.
This is a bill for a typical throat infection with cough and flu. Being an average income earning singapore citizen, there is a 65% subsidies. For lower income earners, senior citizens, young children, subsidies could be higher.
So you could be spending on average 1.5 to 2 hours at the polyclinic, is that worth your time for the average 65% subsidies potential savings?