Everything About the CHAS IT Error Which Gave Out Almost $2 Million in Wrong Subsidies

Yesterday, a breaking news (not we say one: several news outlets put it as “breaking news”) was reported.

There was yet another “lapse” (or in this case, a software error) that could potentially derail our journey to a smart nation. In the future, when everything’s digital and we’ve grand-kids, this conversation might occur:

Grand-kid: Grandpa, you lived through the digital revolution. How was it?

You: My dear kiddo, you’ve no idea how many wrongs were made to make things right

Grand-kid: Like?

You: Like how influencers used the new digital world to humblebrag

Grand-kid: And?

You: And a software error led to people paying more or less for CHAS subsidies

Grand-kid: What’s…CHAS?

You: Good question

What is CHAS?

To understand this article, you’ve to understand what CHAS is.

Known as Community Health Assist Scheme, it’s a scheme that provide subsidies for low- and middle-income Singapore citizens for medical and dental care at participating General Practitioners (GPs) and dental clinics.

Its objective is to ensure that even the low- and middle-income citizens can afford healthcare services.

They come in three versions: the CHAS Blue card, the CHAS Orange card and the CHAS for Pioneer Generation.

Here’s a concise breakdown of the cards:

CHAS Blue Card

• For low-income citizens with household monthly income of $1,100 below, or annual value of home at $13,000 or below
• Subsidy of $18.50 per visit for common GP visit, or $320 / $480 per year for chronic conditions
• Up to $256.50 subsidy for selected dental services

CHAS Orange Card

• For citizens with household monthly income of $1,101 to $1,800, or annual value of home at $13,000 to $21,000
• No subsidy for visit to GP for common conditions
• Subsidy of $200 / $300 per year for chronic conditions
• Up to $170.50 subsidy for selected dental services

CHAS for Pioneer Generation

• For pioneer generation only (regardless of income)
• Subsidy of $28.50 per visit for common GP visit, or $360 / $540 per year for chronic conditions
• Up to $266.50 subsidy for selected dental services

Now, if you look at all these, you’ll realise the Blue Card is the most “wuhua”, but of course you need to show that you’re a low-income citizen.

That is when the error affected the system.

People Who Applied or Renewed CHAS between 18 September 2018 to 10 October 2018 Were Affected

As you can see, whether a person’s going to receive a Blue or Orange card depends a lot on his or her income. And incomes for people change regularly, so there’s a system to vet if a person’s application is valid—for you can be having a monthly household income of $10,000 a month and declare that your income is only $1,000 a month just to get the Blue Card.

On 16 September 2018, the “means-test system”, which is used to calculate “the healthcare subsidies which individuals are eligible for”, migrated its data centre (a data centre is a place with many servers) to another location.

Now, do note that the IT system is not run by CHAS themselves, but outsourced to NCS, an IT company that is under Singtel.

In the new server, there was a software error and a wrong version of the software was deployed instead. However, it still processed applications since 18 September 2018. Six days later, a CHAS team spotted an error and informed NCS. However, NCS was unable to find the cause.

On 10 October 2018, the NCS team was working on other stuff and found the error previously mentioned. They fixed the error immediately.

In other words, between 18 September 2018 to 10 October 2018, if you’ve applied or renewed your CHAS application, you subsidies might be wrong.

What was Done

By 10 February this year, they managed to determine that 7,700 people were affected.

6,400 received higher subsidies than what they were eligible for (e.g. they should have an Orange card but received a Blue card instead), which is about $2 million.

Those people would not need to pay for the difference (since it’s not their fault mah). MOH intends to get the money from NCS as it’s their error. In fact, if you’d have noticed, if NCS had not “accidentally” found the error, the cost could be much higher and people might still be receiving the wrong subsidies.

1,300 people received lower subsidies than what they were eligible for and they would be reimbursed. This came out to $400,000.

People who are affected would be informed by mid-March, but they do not need to do anything.

Software Version Can Cause Such Major Error?

In case you’re not aware, yes, you should always update to the latest version of your OS be it your computer or your smartphone.

Other than making sure that it works the way you want it to be, new versions usually contain security patches—not updating your OS or software could lead to your entire laptop or smartphone being compromised.

So don’t pray pray.