Private Healthcare's Fork in the Road
Enhancing Private Healthcare Efficiency
In 2022, Day Hospitals Australia published Viability Proposition Reports highlighting significant savings available to the private health sector. These savings can be achieved by implementing policies that support the use of day hospitals or smaller, lower-cost private hospitals for simple treatments, tailored to each patient’s needs and condition.
In June 2024, Day Hospitals Australia released a report titled Private Healthcare’s Fork in the Road, expanding on previous findings and emphasising the need to disrupt the current private hospital funding paradigm to ensure the sustainability of the healthcare system.
In June 2025, this report was updated to reflect the most recent publicly available data – HCP 2023/24. The revised Fork in the Road document aims to support stakeholders, particularly when negotiating with private health insurers.
Unfortunately, a comparison between the original and updated reports reveals no improvement in indexation from insurers for day hospitals. In some cases, the situation has even deteriorated.
To maintain the affordability of private healthcare and health insurance premiums, it remains crucial to direct more day procedures to day hospitals and ensure these facilities are remunerated adequately to support their continued viability.
