This Month
Health insurers warn of closures without 6pc premium hike
Health funds have asked Labor to allow big premium rises as the amount they charge policyholders is not keeping pace with healthcare inflation.
- Michael Smith
The woman defending the industry everyone loves to hate
Private health insurers are being derided all around, but their chief lobbyist, Rachel David, insists they make our medical system the envy of the Americans and British.
- Michael Smith
Health insurer NIB warns profit to fall up to 10pc as NZ claims soar
The company’s admission comes a day before submissions are due to the federal government about premium increases for the coming year.
- Updated
- Michael Smith
Brookfield’s Healthscope secures extension on $1.6b debt
The private hospital operator has been given more time from its lenders to secure extra funding from insurers as costs mount.
- Michael Smith
Health insurer salaries in the spotlight as premiums climb
The salaries of Australia’s big health insurance bosses are rising with their profits.
- Michael Smith
October
- Exclusive
- Healthcare
Healthscope vows to terminate Bupa deal if it does not accept fees
Healthscope has written to Bupa asking it to amend its contract to let it slug members with extra hospital fees.
- Michael Smith
Healthscope to slug Bupa members $100 extra for hospital stays
Six million Australian health fund members will be forced to pay higher charges to use the services of the country’s second-largest private hospital group.
- Michael Smith
Hospitals says insurance premium hikes will not fix funding crisis
Private hospital operators also call for changes to the way in which the funding insurers contribute to the healthcare system is calculated.
- Michael Smith
Health insurers ask for big premium rise in new headache for Labor
Major funds have kicked off negotiations with the Health Department, and concede the rise they want creates a “very difficult situation” for Anthony Albanese.
- Michael Smith
James Warburton joins HCF-backed sportstech VC; raise in the offing
Street Talk can report the media executive has joined sport & health technology VC XT Venture as it seeks to raise its first investment fund.
- Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
- Opinion
- NIB
Health insurers have landed in a world of pain, political or otherwise
They’re under fire from parliamentarians and hospitals for making too much profit, and yet are caught in a customer land grab that is shaving away profits.
- Michael Smith
September
Is private equity unhealthy for our hospitals?
Billions of dollars have poured into healthcare assets over the past decade. Some warn that style of investing is incompatible with essential services.
- Michael Smith
Insurers deny caving in to Healthscope demands
“Out-of-contract payments have not occurred in response to Brookfield and Healthscope’s heavy-handed US-style campaign,” says lobby group.
- Michael Smith
- Exclusive
- Healthscope
Healthscope forces big insurers to cough up to repair its profits
Medibank Private, NIB and HCF have agreed to out-of-cycle funding payments in the “tens of millions of dollars” for the Brookfield-owned hospital group.
- Michael Smith
- Exclusive
- Healthcare
Health Department review finds private hospitals ‘uninvestable’
The preliminary findings, which have not been made public, come as Labor MPs grow concerned that the government is failing to fix a crisis in the system.
- Michael Smith
August
Why Australia’s sick hospitals are on the brink
Australians are paying more for surgery in private hospitals than ever, and there is no cure in sight for facilities struggling with record costs and fees.
- Michael Smith
NIB says plan to fix hospital pricing ‘crazy’ as funding tensions grow
Insurers and hospitals are split on how to fix their acrimonious pricing negotiations as government reviews private health.
- Michael Smith
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
Why we’ll all end up taking Ozempic
Retiring NIB chief Mark Fitzgibbon on the two biggest issues facing the private health sector: the brawl between hospitals and insurers, and the future of care.
- James Thomson
- Opinion
- Opinion
Health insurance shouldn’t be private hospitals’ field of dreams
Instead of protecting private hospitals from predatory insurers, an obsolete contract framework protects operators from full accountability for inefficiencies and misjudgments.
- Terry Barnes
Private health cover could become unaffordable, Medibank warns
The insurer says foreign student policyholders have surged, but fewer permanent Australian residents signed up for private health insurance than expected.
- Michael Smith