Transcript
Station: 2GB
Program: Weekend Mornings
Date: 9/2/2026
Time: 11:54 AM
Compere: Luke Grant
Program: Weekend Mornings
Date: 9/2/2026
Time: 11:54 AM
Compere: Luke Grant
Interviewee: Ben Harris, Director of Policy and Research, Private Healthcare Australia
| Luke Grant | Let’s have a chat here to Ben Harris. He’s the Director of Policy and Research at private healthcare Australia. G’day. Ben, good morning, Luke. How are you well? Mate, thank you so much for jumping on the line with us. We see cases like the one I mentioned, the woman there $30,000 out of pocket despite having private cover. Now no one imagines that you know you’re going to go for a series of procedures and end up spending nothing, but if you think you’re fully covered to be $30,000 out of pocket. Wow, that’s a bit of pill to swallow. Please excuse the pun. |
| Ben Harris | Absolutely Luke, we are finding more and more Australians are not even getting to the specialist, and we’ve seen people who are delaying treatment or not going. Some people are even choosing which kid they take to the specialist. People are being put in impossible choices. Now, what we’re seeing is really large out of pocket costs for people who are referred from a general practitioner to another medical specialist. And we’re seeing nearly a third of people who are being referred now not going and that goes up to half for families who have got kids with chronic health conditions, so they’re sending their kids, but they’re not going themselves, and that’s going to not only cause a problem now for their health, but it, you know, increases waiting lists in public hospitals. It means they’re going to be sicker when they present. And it’s a real problem we’re very, very concerned about. |
| Luke Grant | Wow, that is huge. So down to the cost, I’ve got something, it might not be anything, so it’s going to be expensive. I better hold off. I mean that is that is rolling the dice, and people shouldn’t be in the situation where, you know they have to roll the dice. What leads us down this road are specialists overcharging? What is it? What’s going on here? |
| Ben Harris | A lot of it is about transparency. So we surveyed 4,000 people. It’s the largest survey of medical specialist fees that we’ve ever seen in Australia, and it’s a random survey, so it’s really solid, and it showed that one in two people did not know the fee for their specialist appointment before going. Now, if you don’t know the fee, you don’t know whether you can afford it or not. So what we’re seeing is people who know the fee and can’t afford it, but we’re also seeing people who don’t know what they’re going to be up for, and they’re not going because they’re too scared. So what we really need to do is get much more transparency into this system. We need medical specialists to have on their website, to have on the government website, medical cost finder, what they are going to charge now, then you could travel for care. If you want something cheaper or quicker, you could make a choice, or you could make the choice to go to the public system, even though waiting lists can be incredibly long. |
| Luke Grant | Yes, 29% according to the report, 29% of patients have been charged what’s been described as illegal administration or booking fees not visible through Medicare. I’m told. How’s that happening? |
| Ben Harris | Well, we’re seeing in some areas, patients being asked to pay, say, $50 administration fee. So Medicare never sees it. You pay your medical fee, you get your Medicare rebate, but the doctor or the practice has pocketed an extra 50 bucks, and that is not legal, and it needs to be driven out, and we need laws to be improved to make sure that doesn’t happen. We’ve also seen nearly 20% of people being asked to pay non refundable deposits before they even go to the appointment. So you’ve got to pay up front to actually just set the appointment. And again, this this means that people who can’t afford the out of pocket costs, or people who are not wealthy people have got multiple health conditions are the ones who are most affected by this, and it’s causing real problems in the system. |
| Luke Grant | That’s extraordinary. So you’ve got the referral, you ring, and you make the appointment, and to make the appointment, they might hit you up for, I don’t know, 50 bucks or 100 bucks. And what’s that a non-refundable reservation fee or something. Is it surely that comes off the cost of the consult? |
| Ben Harris | You’d think so, and I hope sometimes it does. But what we are seeing is a lot of people reporting fees like this, which are never given to Medicare, so Medicare doesn’t know about them. That. Private health insurer doesn’t know about them, as it’s in hospital. Private health insurers aren’t allowed to cover out of hospital specialist care. We’re only allowed to cover in hospital. But you know, these are barriers to care, and what we’re seeing is nearly a third of Australians not going to get specialist care. Now, if a general practitioner sends you to a specialist, there’s something that needs to be looked at. Yes, and people not going is a major problem in our health system. |
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