The Federal Department of Health’s current consultation on Specialist affordability – options for addressing excessive fee charging draws a link between what it defines as “excessive” fees charged by a small minority of medical specialists and the problems some Australians have accessing medical specialist care. This is a link that does not stand up to scrutiny.
The Council of Procedural Specialists (COPS) has analysed the department’s consultation paper and has serious concerns about how the data is used to justify government intervention into what private specialists charge for their services. Specifically, “The affordability evidence does not necessarily establish the impact of the excessive fee tail. The ABS result that 8.6% of people delayed or did not see a specialist because of cost is evidence of broader affordability pressures, but does not identify whether those patients were exposed to the particular high fee services being targeted in the paper. The paper also notes that this measure has not increased despite rising specialist costs and cost-of-living pressures.“
COPS concludes that “the consultation paper has not established a causal link between the non-affordability of private medical specialist care for some Australians and the provision of specialist services for which the fees are described in these papers as “excessive”.
“Based on the information presented and the options available, COPS believes that it is not possible to arrive at an objective and universally applicable definition of what is an excessive fee.“
The Council of Procedural Specialists’ full submission can be read here.
There is no evidence that government intervention to cap what it claims are “excessive” medical fees will have any impact whatsoever on the proportion of Australians who report delaying or not accessing medical specialist care when needed because of cost. These are patients who need an urgent expansion of public medical specialist services.
Like COPS, the ADF supports patients giving Informed Financial Consent for all medical treatment, and the right of all private medical practitioners to independently value their own services, as required by competition law. We support the freedom of Australians to choose their own doctor without commercial or government interference or coercion, and the independence of the Australian medical profession to act in the patient’s interest, free from the influence or coercion of government or commercial
agendas.