Australian Medical Association

In November 2008 the Council of Australian Governments' agreed to introduce a nationally-consistent approach to activity-based funding for public hospital services to allow comparisons of efficiency across public hospitals.

Subsequently, the Australian Government asked the Productivity Commission to examine and report on the relative performance of the public and private hospital systems. In June 2009, the Productivity Commission released a paper seeking information and feedback on a range of issues including treatment costs, including out-of-pocket patient expenses and rates of fully-informed financial consent, rates of hospital-acquired infections and other relevant performance indicators.

Below are the two submissions the AMA made to the Productivity Commission on the Performance of public and private hospital systems. The AMA submissions also address the Commission's term of reference on informed financial consent.

AMA President, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, today warned that private health insurance premiums are likely to rise by about five per cent as a result of measures in the Rudd Government's first Budget.

An Access Economics analysis of the Budget commissioned by the AMA, Health and the 2008-09 Federal Budget, found that changes in the private health insurance rebate and increases in the Medicare Levy surcharge threshold would spark an exodus of young, healthy people from private health insurance.

AMA Position Statement Medical Training in Expanded Settings Including the Private Sector - 2007

AMA Position Statement Recognising Medical Teaching and Training in Private Practice - 2007