Charlie Teo: celebrity surgeon’s prices ‘challenged by insurers’

Prices charged by surgeon Charlie Teo have been challenged by insurers and Medicare in the past.

Brain surgeon Charlie Teo. Picture: Jonathan Ng.

The prices charged by brain surgeon Charlie Teo have been challenged by insurers and Medicare in the past, according to a leading industry figure, while the component he attributed to his own hospital this week was incorrect.

Dr Teo has sought to ­defend his bills and results after Sydney urological surgeon Henry Woo questioned the “really disturbing trend” of people launching online fundraising campaigns to see him.

Yesterday, Dr Teo — after initially welcoming Dr Woo’s comments on private sector costs — accused him of trolling.

“Get back to your lab, try and find a cure for prostate cancer (and) I will try and find a cure for brain cancer,” Dr Teo told the Nine Network’s Today show.

Some online campaigns have raised more than $120,000 in the hope Dr Teo, who works out of the Prince of Wales Private Hospital in Sydney, can extend or save a life.

On Tuesday, Dr Teo claimed that $120,000 for an uninsured patient would include $40,000 for the various practitioners — “granted, I get the largest cut of the pie” — and $80,000 for the hospital. He suggested the hospital charged more than normal ­because of the complexity of his cases but also to make a profit.

However, it appears Dr Teo made a mistake because The Australian has learned the hospital charges Dr Teo’s patients only between $35,000 and $40,000 on average, regardless of complexity. If they have insurance, the health fund will pay that component, and the only out-of-pocket costs would relate to practitioners’ fees.

“Each individual specialist ­determines the fees that they charge for specific operations and the surgeon will discuss this ­directly with their patients,” a hospital spokesman said.

“The hospital does not involve itself in these matters.”

Dr Teo had suggested that his portion of the bill — perhaps $8000 for a $120,000 operation — was comparable to that of his peers, but also reflected his ­advanced level of skill and the complexity of the cases he took on. He insisted patients gave ­informed financial consent.

Total average out-of-pocket ­expenses for insured brain surgery patients can be hundreds or sometimes thousands of dollars.

Several fundraising campaigns to see Dr Teo refer to the prospect of tens of thousands of dollars in gaps after insurance.

Private Healthcare Australia chief executive Rachel David said if Medicare paid a rebate, insurers would normally pay for the hospital stay, intensive care and rehabilitation. “The funds will also pay ‘gap cover’ for the surgeon, ­assistant and anaesthetist, but this will be nowhere near the six-­figure sums charged by Dr Teo as this would put too much pressure on premiums for other members,” Dr David said.

“I am aware of some situations where health funds have challenged these bills on behalf of their members, and where the MBS (Medicare rebate) has also not been paid.”

She said terminally ill ­patients were more vulnerable to exploitation by a lack of publicly available data on clinical outcomes.

Dr Woo yesterday returned to Twitter — where he started the debate over Dr Teo’s practices — to argue that cancer surgeons should at least participate in peer-review programs.

Anyone claiming to be the only surgeon capable of certain procedures — as Dr Teo has previously suggested of himself — and unable to have their outcomes compared, was a “red flag”, Dr Woo said.