Medical colleges across Australia have united to call for ethical billing practices and fee transparency to tackle disparities in access to specialist care.
The Council of Presidents of Medical Colleges has warned patients are increasingly concerned about access to specialist care, including out of pocket expenses and unexpected bills.
It launched a national Professionalism Framework on ethical billing and fee transparency at Parliament House in Canberra last week.
The framework establishes shared expectations for ethical billing, fee transparency and informed financial consent, which it said reinforces the profession’s commitment to patient-centred care.
It sets out several key principles that should be followed, including:
- Plain-language disclosure of all costs
- Genuine informed financial consent as a prerequisite to treatment
- Compassionate billing that accounts for patients’ circumstances.
It also sets out an explicit expectation that specialists consistently uphold these principles in their practice.
CPMC Chair Associate Professor Kerin Fielding said the framework makes it clear that patients are entitled to clear and upfront information about the cost of their care.
“Patients deserve clear information about the cost of their care and the confidence that billing practices are fair, transparent and respectful,” she said.
“This framework reinforces that informed financial consent is not complete unless patients have had a genuine opportunity to understand the financial implications of their care, including available alternatives.”
Billing practices that exploit vulnerabilities, obscure costs, or include undisclosed fees are inconsistent with professional standards and should not form part of contemporary specialist practice, the Council said in a statement.
While specialist medical colleges do not set or regulate fees, CPMC said the profession has a responsibility to uphold transparency in billing practices so that patients can make informed decisions about their care.
The cost of specialist care has been in the spotlight recently, after the federal government put forward legislation to allow it to publish specialist medical fees on its Medical Costs Finder site.
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The government also proposes to publish Medicare, hospital and insurer billing data already collected on the Medical Costs Finder in an effort to improve transparency.
The website was first published in 2019 under the Liberal/National coalition in an effort to improve transparency around specialist fees for the general public.
However just six of 6300 specialist doctors across the country had chosen to voluntarily display their fee information by the end of 2022.
According to Health Minister Mark Butler that number has since risen to 88 individual doctors.
The Council has committed to working with the Commonwealth to ensure the Medical Costs Finder website delivers better transparency for patients.
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