How public hospitals are raising your health fund premiums by $330 a year

PUBLIC hospitals are putting ads on toilet doors and hiring workers whose sole job is to make patients get their health fund to pay for their care.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt is demanding an explanation from states health ministers as to why they are deliberately taking private patients over public and charging health funds. Picture: Toby Zerna

EXCLUSIVE

PUBLIC hospitals are hiring workers whose sole job is to persuade patients to get their health fund to pay for their hospital care and it’s adding $330 a year to your insurance premiums.

Hospitals are also putting advertisements on the back of hospital toilet doors to urge people to get their health fund to pay for their hospital care.

It’s all part of a deliberate policy by state and territory governments that is seeing up to four in ten patients at some public hospitals charged for treatment that should be free under Medicare.

The number of privately insured patients treated in public hospitals has nearly doubled in the last six years from 452,000 to 872,000.

The practice is costing health funds more than $1 billion a year and adding up to $330 a year to your health fund premiums.

News Corp Australia revealed earlier this week that privately insured patients were getting priority treatment in public hospitals, waiting just 20 days for elective surgery while public patients waited 42 days.

This is a breach of Medicare rules that has infuriated Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt who is demanding an explanation from the states.

Part of an ad on the back of a public hospital door urging Medicare patients to bill their health fund.

It’s all part of a deliberate policy by state and territory governments that is seeing up to four in ten patients at some public hospitals charged for treatment that should be free under Medicare.

The number of privately insured patients treated in public hospitals has nearly doubled in the last six years from 452,000 to 872,000.

The practice is costing health funds more than $1 billion a year and adding up to $330 a year to health fund premiums.

News Corp Australia revealed earlier this week that privately insured patients were getting priority treatment in public hospitals, waiting just 20 days for elective surgery while public patients waited 42 days.

This is a breach of Medicare rules that has infuriated Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt who is demanding an explanation from the states.

Health funds, which this week recorded a massive 18 per cent profit, have experienced a slide in membership and are demanding public hospitals stop cost shifting treatment onto insurers.

“We are spending more and it’s driving up costs for everyone,” says Private Healthcare Australia chief Rachel David.

The Australian Medical Association says if they can’t charge health funds public hospitals will need billions of dollars in extra funding from the Federal Government.

An advertisement for a private patients services officer whose job is to get health funds to pay for what should be free public hospital care.

As part of the strategy News Corp Australia can reveal:

*AN Ernst and Young report has found the NSW, Victorian, Queensland, West Australian and Tasmanian State Governments have set their hospitals targets for “own source revenue” which is code for getting health funds to pay for hospital care. When they exceed the target they keep the extra money.

*HEALTH analyst Martyn Goddard says AIHW figures show NSW hospitals are making more money out of the average private patient than they’re spending on the average public patient. A person who has their health fund billed in a public hospital in NSW will cost on average $5,155.50. The average public patient costs just $4,762.70.

*HOSPITALS are putting advertisements on the back of hospital toilet doors to urge people to get their health fund to pay for their hospital care.

*IN their brochures public hospitals are promising people who use their private health insurance they can jump the waiting lists and get the “choice to have elective surgery earlier”.

*HOSPITALS are even paying the $250 excess on people’s insurance cover to entice them to go private

*HOSPITALS are charging health funds three times more for medical devices like hip replacements than the device costs the hospital under an inflationary federal government rule.

*IN some cases federal government is paying twice for hospital care once through grants to public hospitals and then again via Medicare when doctors working in outpatient clinics bill Medicare.

*HOSPITALS set aside the extra Medicare funding in a special Doctor’s Education Fund which is used to fund overseas trips and other projects nominated by doctors.

One major Sydney hospital is rumoured to have a nine figure sum in such an account. NSW Health says “these accounts are managed and governed by the staff specialist or a management committee of staff specialists who must approve the use of these funds. Funds are used for hospital equipment and for the training and educations of staff specialists and other clinical personnel”.

The scale of the problem has the government’s independent Hospital Pricing Authority worried that a new funding system was providing states with an incentive to treat private patients over public patients.

It hired consultancy firm Ernst and Young to investigate.

The firm “identified evidence of private patents revenue targets in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania which may create incentives for public hospitals to increase the number of private patients. This may be contributing to increases in privately funded public hospital separations”.

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Originally published as How public hospitals are raising your health fund premiums by $330 a year