The Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS), formerly known as the Primary Care Partnership Scheme (PCPS), is one of the Ministry of Health (MOH)’s programmes to help provide accessible and affordable primary care to Singaporeans.

Under CHAS, patients receive subsidised outpatient medical treatments for acute and chronic conditions as well as basic dental services at CHAS-accredited General Practitioners (GPs) and dental clinics near their homes. These patients will also enjoy subsidised referrals to specialist outpatient clinics when required.

For patients with chronic conditions, CHAS works in conjunction with the Chronic Disease Management Programme (CDMP) allowing Medisave usage for the outpatient treatment (of the same set of chronic conditions) covered under CHAS. Besides enjoying CHAS subsidies for their chronic disease treatments, the patient could also tap into their Medisave to defray part of the cost of these treatments. The Medisave withdrawal limit is $400 per Medisave account, per year.

A series of enhancements to CHAS were announced by MOH in August 2013, majority of which would be effective from 1 January 2014 except for the qualifying income criterion, which will take immediate effect. For more information on the benefits and eligibility for CHAS, please visit the CHAS portal (www.chas.sg) or MOH website (www.moh.gov.sg).