1 in 5 uninsured patients going private

Posted: 13 March 2018 8:14 am

News

Aussies sick of waiting lists are paying to jump the queue.

Patients fed up with the wait times for surgery in public hospitals are turning to private hospitals, according to a recent survey from finder.com.au. The study found that almost one-in-five (19%) Aussies had paid to go to a private rather than visiting a public hospital.

Of those choosing private over public, almost half had self-funded a surgery.

These findings come at a time when national waiting times for elective surgeries have blown out to 38 days (2016-17), according to the latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report. These wait times amount to 149,000 years waiting in 2017, according to a finder.com.au analysis of the AIHW data.

Those in NSW account for the most years waiting at 66,886 years, with the Northern Territory accounting for the least at 1,303 years.

State	2016 median waiting days	2017 median waiting days	Total years worth of waiting in 2017
NSW	55	54	66,886 years
VIC	30	30	24,685 years
QLD	29	32	26,038 years
WA	30	34	11,934 years
SA	40	39	10,770 years
TAS	72	45	4,656 years
ACT	NA	46	2,926 years
NT	29	28	1,303 years
Australia	37	38	149,198 years

If you're considering having treatment in a private hospital, you may want to consider taking out private health insurance to minimise how much you'll be paying out-of-pocket. Some of the larger health funds such as HCF and Medibank have out-of-pocket calculators, which allow you to search the procedure you're having and find out what costs you'll likely incur.

In any case, if you're planning to visit a private hospital make sure you understand all of the costs involved so that you're not caught out by unexpected out-of-pocket costs.