Bupa has drawn the ire of Australia’s peak medical body after informing doctors insured patients would qualify for gap cover only if they were treated in a Bupa-approved hospital or medical centre. The president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Michael Gannon, said Bupa’s decision to determine which hospitals patients were sent to was “not at all” acceptable. The Bupa medical gap scheme is designed to eliminate or significantly reduce medical costs associated with hospital treatment by paying doctors significantly higher benefits than those paid under Medicare. “In 2016-17, we received 5,750 private health insurance complaints, compared to 4,416 in 2015-16,” the report said. This would help policy makes understand “how we can get better value for the $6.5bn taxpayer subsidy for private health insurance businesses, and for people who have purchased insurance”, she said.

Source: The Guardian March 06, 2018 06:13 UTC