Experts say more than 20 per cent of patients are paying more than expected

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Specialists charging patients too much should be named, shamed and stripped of federal funding. That's according to a Grattan report, which has found more than 20 per cent of patients have been charged an excessive fee.

Transcript

00:00This report paints a very bleak picture of specialist care in Australia, where people

00:06are facing unnecessary illness and pain as they wait for care or struggle to pay for

00:12it.

00:13This Grattan Institute report found more than one in five Australians in 2023 would

00:17charge the specialist fee deemed extreme, which was defined as, on average, more than

00:22three times the Medicare schedule fee.

00:25It makes a raft of recommendations, including bolstering the specialist workforce.

00:29It paints this issue as one of market power, where specialists are free to charge whatever

00:34fees they'd like because there's limited numbers of specialists and people don't have

00:38the option necessarily to go elsewhere.

00:41It also calls for more funding for those public clinics so that people will be able to access

00:46timely and affordable care.

00:48And a really interesting recommendation is to name and shame specialists who are charging

00:53too much and strip them of federal funding.

00:56Take a listen to the Grattan's health program director, Peter Braden, earlier.

01:00Well, our feeling is government has to act because fees overall have risen by 73% since

01:062010.

01:07That's on top of all the inflation costs that people have been struggling with.

01:11And these extreme fees have been rising as well.

01:14So we think at least by telling patients before they turn up, this is an extreme fee charging

01:19specialist and then saying the government really shouldn't be subsidising care that is well

01:24out of reach of most people and for which there's no justification for such extreme high fees.

01:29And Steph, what have been some of the reactions to the report?

01:33Well, the president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Danielle McMullen, says this report

01:39highlights an urgent need for change.

01:41She agrees that the workforce needs to be bolstered.

01:44And she also argues that the Medicare rebate hasn't kept pace with the cost of providing

01:49care, meaning that patients are increasingly being left with out of pocket costs.

01:54Health Minister Mark Butler called on the private sector to do more to protect patients from

01:59exorbitant bills.

02:00And he also pointed to work that the government has done in terms of improving transparency

02:05with a price disclosure website.

02:07And also said that work is underway to bolster the specialist workforce.

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