Orthopaedic surgeons overcharging patients by thousands
Medibank report has found some orthopaedic surgeons are overcharging patients by thousands of dollars, stressing the importance of shopping around for the best price.
The report highlighted the shocking disparity in surgeon fees across Australia when out-of-pocket fees, complication rates and expertise are taken into account.
The study found the average cost of a hip replacement varied by more than $20,000, while the average costs for knee replacements ranged from $17,797 to $30,285 and knee anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) repair ranged from $5076 to $13,950.
Medibank chief medical officer Dr Linda Swan said this report was a sign patients and their referring GPs really should do their research before settling on surgeon.
"There is a lot more to selecting a doctor than taking the first person that is recommended to you," Dr Swan said.
"(Cost) should be part of the referral process. They should be asking questions like 'What is the expertise of this doctor?', 'How many procedures have they done?', 'What costs will I incur?', 'What hospitals will this doctor be able to walk right into?' "
Dr Swan also argued the report should be seen as a prompt for health authorities to start investigating the disparities in price, and the forces driving this.
"When we see large amounts of variation, then somewhere along the line something may not be working well... whether it's waste, or not having the appropriate standards of even errors in the health system.
"It really should cause people to stop and ask questions."
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) president John Batten added, “"This is about looking at the quality of care in the system and how we can use these reports as an educative process: where there are surgeons that are outliers, how can they improve their practice in line with their peers?
"We are committed to continuous improvement in clinical practice in Australia."
What are your thoughts? Do you think we’re being taken to the cleaners by surgeons?