Biggest hospital bills for Covid are not ventilators, they’re for helping those with mental health issues

Patients on ventilators are not the biggest cost for Australia’s health system. Another Covid crisis affecting young people is.

Exclusive: The hidden cost of Covid-19 on Australia’s young people has been uncovered in a shocking new report showing a surge in hospitalisations for mental health care.

As lockdowns and restrictions devastated education, career and travel plans last year – one in five of the high-cost hospital claims for health fund members aged under 30 was for mental health reasons.

And mental diseases and disorders are currently the top diagnosis for female health fund members aged up to 55, with one in every four people hospitalised for mental disorders women.

More than 7,300 young people were hospitalised in 2020 – a 4.8 per cent increase on the year before – with mental disorders including depression, anxiety, eating disorders and drug use, Private Healthcare Australia has revealed in a new report.

On average young people spent nearly a month receiving inpatient care and each high cost admission averaged over $20,000, bringing the total cost to $146.55 million.

Sue Job

“It is extremely difficult to find a bed in the public sector and so often the only option for people who are incapacitated by those conditions is private health,” Private Healthcare Australia CEO Dr Rachel David said.

“We’ve had some very good modelling from the Black Dog Institute which indicates it will continue for some time after the pandemic has started to fade,” Dr David said.

Since 2018 health fund members who have a hospital policy have been able to upgrade their cover to instantly access higher benefits for psychiatric care in a private hospital and tens of thousands have taken advantage.

The extra money spent on mental health during the pandemic was unlikely to drive up premiums next year because it was “offset by the decline in other medical admissions, Dr David said.

Health funds saved nearly $1 billion last year as a result of cancelled or delayed operations due to Covid-19 surgery bans and only a few of them have yet returned the savings to members as promised.

Clinicians work on intubating a COVID-19 patient in the Intensive Care Unit picture Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP

The staggering cost of treating hospitalised Covid-19 patients has also been laid bare in the health insurance industry’s latest tally of its highest cost claims.

A health fund member who spent almost three weeks in ICU with Covid-19 cost their health fund $110,706.

The patient went into hospital for a heart and vascular procedure that would typically cost around $8,000 and require a two day hospital.

However, routine pre-operative test found the person had Covid-19 which they had acquired outside the hospital massively blowing out their hospital stay.

Of the 41 days the person spent in hospital, 19 were spent in ICU and where they were placed on a ventilator for 12 days.

The Intensive Care Unit costs came to nearly $60,000 and their hospital accommodation costs were nearly $51,000.

“It’s just so expensive to maintain ventilation, and one-on-one nursing,” Dr David said.

More than 200 people made a health fund claim for Covid in the 12 months ending December 2020 costing insurers $1.7 million.

There were over 358,100 other non-Covid-19 related hospital claims that exceeded $10,000.

The highest cost was $768,946 for the treatment of diverticulitis (inflammation or infection of abnormal pouches in the bowel wall) where the patient was in hospital for over 6 months.

Thirteen claims cost more than $300,000, 69 more than 200,000 and 865 more than $100,000 the report showed.

If you need help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Or call Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.

Originally published as Biggest hospital bills for Covid are not ventilators, they’re for helping those with mental health issues