Background

The Elderly Health Care Voucher Pilot Scheme was initially launched on 1 January 2009 for a period of three years to try out a new concept of enhancing the provision of primary care service for the elderly. Under the Pilot Scheme, five vouchers of $50 each were provided to each elderly person aged 70 or above annually. The Pilot Scheme aims to supplement existing public healthcare services (e.g. General Out-patient and Specialist Out-patient Clinics) by providing financial incentive for elderly persons to choose private healthcare services that best suit their health needs, including preventive care.



It is in addition to the existing public healthcare services, which will continue to be made available to elderly persons after the introduction of Elderly Health Care Voucher. By encouraging elderly persons to seek consultation and establish a closer relationship with private doctors who are familiar with their health conditions, it also helps promote the concept of family doctor.

Based on the result of Interim Review, the Government decided to extend the Pilot Scheme and increased the annual voucher amount for each eligible elderly person from $250 to $500 in 2012.

In response to the positive feedback, the Government increased the annual voucher amount to $1,000 in 2013.

From 2014, the Scheme has been converted from a pilot project into a recurrent programme and the annual voucher amount has also been increased to $2,000. Eligible elderly persons could continue to carry forward and accumulate unspent vouchers, subject to a ceiling of $4,000 to encourage elderly persons to make good use of the vouchers for primary care services including both curative and preventive care.

Since 1 July 2014, the face value of each voucher has been lowered from $50 to $1.

To provide one more service point for Hong Kong elderly persons to use health care vouchers and to facilitate those who reside in the Mainland to seek medical treatment in Shenzhen, the Government launched the Pilot Scheme at the University of Hong Kong – Shenzhen (HKU-SZ) Hospital on 6 October 2015, enabling eligible Hong Kong elderly persons to use vouchers to pay for the fees of outpatient services provided by designated clinics/departments of the HKU-SZ Hospital.

To alleviate the burden of medical expenses on the elderly and their families and to enhance health promotion and primary care, the Government has lowered the eligibility age for the Scheme from 70 to 65 with effect from 1 July 2017.

In 2018 and 2019, apart from the annual voucher amount of $2,000, each eligible elderly person was also provided with an additional voucher amount of $1,000 on a one-off basis on 8 June 2018 and 26 June 2019 respectively. The accumulation limit of the vouchers was increased to $5,000 on 8 June 2018, and further increased to $8,000 with effect from 26 June 2019 as a regular measure.

Besides, in view of the outcome of a review on the Scheme in 2019, a cap of $2,000 every two years on the voucher amount that can be spent by each elderly person on optometry services has been introduced with effect from 26 June 2019 to encourage the use of vouchers on different primary healthcare services.

The scheme for the use of Elderly Health Care Voucher at the HKU-SZ Hospital was extended to cover Huawei Li Zhi Yuan Community Health Service Center set up by the hospital. Eligible Hong Kong elderly persons are able to use vouchers to pay for the fees of outpatient healthcare services at the Health Service Center with effect from 17 April 2023.

Besides, the coverage of the Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme was extended to include four categories of healthcare profession under the Accredited Registers Scheme for Healthcare Professions. Eligible elderly persons are able to make use of vouchers to pay for the primary healthcare services provided by audiologists, dietitians, clinical psychologists and speech therapists enrolled in the Scheme with effect from 28 April 2023.

The Scheme was further enhanced to allow the shared use of health care vouchers between spouses and the use of electronic consent (e-consent). With effect from 28 July 2023, two elderly persons in spousal relationship, both aged 65 or above and eligible to use vouchers, can share use their vouchers after pairing up their voucher accounts upon mutual consent. After pairing up their accounts, either party can, upon exhaustion of his/her voucher account balance, use the voucher balance in his/her spouse’s account. System improvement measures, including the introduction of e-consent to replace the previous paper-based consent, were implemented on the same date.

On 13 November 2023, a three-year “Elderly Health Care Voucher Pilot Reward Scheme” was rolled out under the Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme. Eligible Hong Kong elderly persons accumulating voucher spending of at least $1,000 on designated primary healthcare services within the same year will be allotted $500 reward to their voucher accounts for using towards disease prevention and health management services.

The Government announced that seven medical institutions in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) have been included in the Elderly Health Care Voucher GBA Pilot Scheme. The pilot medical institutions had successively started to accept the use of vouchers by elderly persons from June to September 2024 to pay for the fees of outpatient services provided by designated departments.

The Government announced the extension of the Elderly Health Care Voucher GBA Pilot Scheme to include 12 new medical institutions in the GBA, achieving full coverage of the nine Mainland cities in the GBA.

The 12 new medical institutions had successively started to accept the use of vouchers by elderly persons from June to August 2025 to further facilitate eligible Hong Kong elderly persons to use vouchers to pay for the fees of outpatient services provided by designated departments.