Bupa boss Hisham El-Ansary warns of a near doubling of public hospital wait lists

Australia’s health insurers have been in a purple patch during Covid-19, but Bupa Asia Pacific CEO Hisham El-Ansary warns pre-pandemic trends are catching up.

Bupa healthcare CEO Hisham El-Ansary says health insurers should be free to fund services that better suit the needs of younger Australians such as gym memberships.

Bupa Asia-Pacific chief executive Hisham El-Ansary has warned of a near doubling of waiting lists across the public health system if health insurance participants fall by 10 per cent as the pandemic sugar hit wears off.

A day after Australia’s biggest private hospital operator, Ramsay Health Care, terminated its contract with Bupa after failing to strike a new funding agreement, Mr El-Ansary said consumers needed to be put at the centre of healthcare and called for a “cultural shift”.

While the nation’s health insurance sector generated a record $2bn profit in the year to March 31, the windfall is due to pandemic-fuelled elective surgery bans and people looking to dodge lengthy public waiting lists.

But before Covid-19, scores of people, particularly the young and healthy, were withdrawing from health insurance to the point where former Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority executive Geoff Summerhayes warned in early 2020 that only three private health insurers would have a sustainable business model by this year.

The prediction did not eventuate, but Mr El-Ansary said that did not ­negate the need for reform. “It is pleasing that over the past two years we’ve seen growth in health insurance participation in Australia, on the back of successive years of decline,” Mr El-Ansary told the Healthcare Leaders Forum in Sydney on Wednesday.

“My belief, however, is that the structural factors that were diminishing the value proposition for our young people pre-Covid have not changed, and over the medium term we will continue to see declines.”

Mr El-Ansary said health insurers should be allowed to fund services that better met the needs of millennials, such as gym memberships, with the health system too focused on treating acute illnesses.

Citing McKinsey research, he said a 10 per cent fall in health insurance participation would mean 1.5 million people were fully dependent on the public health system, which was at cap­acity even before Covid-19 hit.

“Hospital waiting lists would increase by more than 90 per cent. This is the equivalent of an additional 3600 hospital beds or the capacity of our four largest hospitals,” Mr El-Ansary said.

“And yet, so often we hear about a lack of relevance and perceived value when it comes to private health insurance.

“Health insurers continue to be constrained to largely funding healthcare for acute conditions in hospital settings. This no longer meets the healthcare needs of today’s consumers.”