{"id":96083,"date":"2025-08-26T02:18:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T02:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/96083\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T02:18:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T02:18:07","slug":"medicine-price-catcher-app-risks-unethical-price-wars-says-mma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/96083\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicine \u2018Price Catcher\u2019 App Risks Unethical Price Wars, Says MMA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>KUALA LUMPUR, August 26 \u2014 The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) has slammed a new government app that lists the retail medicine prices in private health care facilities and community pharmacies.<\/p>\n<p>The doctors\u2019 group stressed that selecting a health care provider solely on the basis of medicine prices was not in the best interest of patients, pointing out that clinics and health care professionals deliver professional medical advice, diagnostic assessments, patient education, treatment planning, and various therapeutic services \u2013 going beyond medications.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese integral components of care are not captured by price listings alone. Patients deserve to choose their health care facility based on the quality of care, professionalism, continuity, and overall value, not merely by comparing medicine costs,\u201d said MMA president Dr Kalwinder Singh Khaira in a statement to CodeBlue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMoreover, promoting price comparisons risks triggering price wars and further commercialisation of health care, which is precisely what the Ministry of Health (MOH) has consistently cautioned against.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA race to the bottom could undermine standards of care, drive unethical pricing practices, and ultimately erode the trust between patients and providers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/codeblue.galencentre.org\/2025\/08\/health-ministry-pilots-new-medicine-price-catcher-app\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">CodeBlue recently reported<\/a> that the MOH\u2019s Pharmaceutical Services Programme (PSP) was piloting an app called MyPriMeCatcher to enable the public to compare retail medicine prices, following the price display mandate by the Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Ministry (KPDN) under the Price Control and Anti-Profiteering Act 2011 (Act 723).<\/p>\n<p>MMA said it did not believe that the MyPriMeCatcher app would get widespread participation from private clinics, mainly because the government has yet to raise general practitioners\u2019 (GP) consultation fees that have remained unchanged at RM10 to RM35 for over three decades, despite the MOH\u2019s \u201crepeated commitments\u201d to address this.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithout a fair and sustainable consultation fee, clinics may see little incentive to channel any resources toward data submission for this app, especially when their core concern, which is clinic viability, remains unresolved,\u201d said Dr Kalwinder.<\/p>\n<p>Four other doctors\u2019 associations have condemned the MyPriMeCatcher app as a \u201cTrojan horse\u201d, rejecting cooperation with the MOH to voluntarily submit drug price data in exchange for continuing professional development (CPD) points.<\/p>\n<p>In a joint statement yesterday, the Federation of Private Medical Practitioners\u2019 Associations Malaysia (FPMPAM), the Private Medical Practitioners Association of Selangor and Kuala Lumpur (PMPASKL), the Medical Practitioners Coalition Association of Malaysia (MPCAM), and the Organisation of Malaysian Muslim Doctors (Perdim) dubbed the project as a \u201cbackdoor enforcement of drug price display through a government-controlled app.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe MyPriMeCatcher initiative is misguided, counterproductive, and damaging to both patients and doctors. Until MOH focuses on strengthening its own failing system, we will reject any attempt to use private doctors as scapegoats or data feeders for bureaucratic apps,\u201d said FPMPAM, PMPASKL, MPCAM, and Perdim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KUALA LUMPUR, August 26 \u2014 The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) has slammed a new government app that lists&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,27798,786,70728,785,70729,70730,85],"class_list":["post-96083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-drug-price-display","tag-fighting","tag-medicine-price-catcher-app","tag-mma","tag-myprimecatcher-app","tag-price-transparency","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}