Private Health Insurance Review

Submission to the Federal Government’s Private Health Insurance Review

Stakeholders have been invited to provide submissions to the Department of Health after Minister Ley announced the consultation process in October.

The Guild’s submission covers a range of issues surrounding private health insurance including the complexity of the industry and the need for a structure to help manage risk.

“With the onset of complex, specialised and personalised medicines, the need to access these expensive treatments in the private market is increasing,” the submission states.

“Like hospital costs, they are treatments that many patients cannot reasonably be expected to access from their existing financial resources and should be insurable, possibly through a form of trauma insurance.

“At the moment, the current claim limits are totally inadequate in terms of meeting a reasonable proportion of the costs of these expensive, non-PBS subsidised medicines, which can be a matter of life and death for patients with rare cancers and genetic disorders.”

The submissions also highlights the need for health insurers to provide greater transparency and certainty for patients regarding the medicines they cover and the level of cover.

“Patients should be able to insure themselves at levels that minimise the cost of these medicines and should have the flexibility to utilise their wider general treatment pool (and possibly their hospital pool in defined circumstances) to assist in the cost of the provision of these medicines.”

Download the Guild’s Submission to the Federal Government’s Private Health Insurance Review.

To learn more about the government’s consultation process, visit the Department of Health website.