It is perfectly legal for a doctor working in private practice to charge what they believe is fair and reasonable. But that doesn’t mean it’s OK to charge tens of thousands of dollars for a procedure.
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Articles on Health financing
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Health has taken centre stage of the election campaign. Here’s what you need to know to make sense of the claims (and counter claims) of the major parties so far.
Here’s how the Turnbull/Morrison government performed on hospitals, primary care, pharmaceuticals and private health insurance.
It’s important that the proposed reforms do not just fund more care, but support more of the best care.
While the freeze has been blamed for rising out-of-pocket costs for consumers, bulk billing rates haven’t fallen.
Paying doctors a fee for each service they provide isn’t delivering optimal value for the health dollar. Instead, we should pay doctors a lump sum to care for a patient’s medical problem over time.
The A$1.25 billion health funding boost isn’t based on any coherent policy direction. It’s designed to shore up support in marginal electorates.
Yes, doctors’ fees should be transparent, but that requirement alone doesn’t go far enough to combat “bill shock”. Specialists should also be required to set fees that are “fair and reasonable”.
The bill to provide universal health care in South Africa is not the silver bullet for the challenges in the health sector.
Policies encouraging lifestyle changes that reduce the risk of cancer could have positive effects on the economies of BRICS countries.
The reality of how the so-called penalties will work won’t match the rhetoric.
African leaders need to up their health allocations to help the new World Health Organisation Director-General meet his health care targets for the continent.
There are a number of challenges that the World Health Organisation’s new leader, Ethiopian-born Tedros Ghebreyesus, will have to navigate during his tenure.
For real reform to Medicare’s fee-for-service payments model, we need to look for more innovative solutions to how we pay for health care. These can be found in an unlikely place: the United States.
People ending up in hospital for diabetes, tooth decay, or other conditions that should be treatable or manageable out of hospital is a warning sign of system failure.
The government must do more to deliver a 21st-century health system – not just to improve its standing with voters but to meet the health needs of all Australians.
The ageing population is only a relatively small contributor to the growth in hospital admissions.
Health policy was an important factor in the election outcome, but one of the most important issues in the health sector – the impact of out-of-pocket costs – was mostly ignored.
We need to focus on keeping people out of hospital by providing better co-ordinated and integrated care.
States will receive an additional A$2.9 billion from July 2017 to June 2020, with growth in Commonwealth funding capped at 6.5%. The Conversation’s experts respond.
Top contributors
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Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne
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Program Director, Health and Aged Care, Grattan Institute
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Health economist, University of Sydney
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Adjunct Associate Professor, Menzies Centre for Health Policy and Economics, University of Sydney
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Professor of Health Economics and Director, Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation, University of Technology Sydney
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Reader in Health Economics, Centre for Health Economics, University of York
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Emeritus Professor of Public Health, La Trobe University
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Associate, Grattan Institute
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Professor of Healthcare Systems, Brunel University of London
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Professor of Health Economics, Flinders University
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Professor of Health Economics, University of Bologna, University of Newcastle
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Professor of Healthcare Modelling, University of Westminster
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Senior Lecturer, Health Care Management, School of Medicine, Flinders University
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Research Associate - Operational Research Modeller, Cardiff University
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Jim Gillespie is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor in Health Policy, Menzies Centre for Health Policy & Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
