The National Billing System (NBS) is one of the three major programmes that the Singapore public healthcare sector has embarked on to transform care delivery.
NBS will deliver a national charging and billing system that provides a consistent experience for patients and healthcare professionals across more than 60 public healthcare institutions. Patients will benefit from an intuitive and transparent view of costs and subsidies, while healthcare clusters will enjoy streamlined billing processes and electronic inter-cluster billing, saving time and effort.
NBS will also enable quicker and easier implementation of the new or revised government policies across healthcare institutions in Singapore.
About National Billing System (NBS)
NBS at a glance
Opportunity
Patients in Singapore have experienced inconsistent billing and charging across healthcare institutions given the multiple systems with disparate accounting functions and fragmented billing systems. The implementation of nation-wide subsidy schemes across different billing and charging platforms was also more costly and time-consuming.
There was a need to streamline the processes and enhance collaboration for inter-cluster billing and posting.
Solution
NBS delivers a national charging and billing system that provides patients and healthcare professionals a consistent experience through standardised billing format and streamlined billing processes and electronic inter-cluster billing, standardised charging rules application for national policies while allowing flexibility for differentiated charging, and harmonised service masters with reduction in service groups and service codes.
Impact
NBS will benefit all patients over 60 public healthcare institutions across the three public healthcare clusters. Patients will enjoy a unified and transparent view of costs and subsidies while healthcare providers can manage billing and charging more efficiently through electronic inter-cluster billing and streamlined processes. The Ministry of Health will also have greater visibility of charging and billing processes, enabling faster and more cost-efficient implementation of new policies.
Future Outlook
NBS aims to transform healthcare billing in Singapore by introducing self-service features and intelligent solutions for out-of-pocket payments.
