Possible changes to private health insurance
The Minister for Health and Ageing, Tony Abbott, has released Draft Private Health Insurance Rules for industry consideration.
The new rules will enable health insurers to offer more flexible private health insurance products to the almost 10 million Australians with private health insurance.
Under the proposed new rules health insurance funds will be able to pay for: disease management programs for sufferers of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease; prevention and support programs for people at high risk of developing chronic disease; out of hospital treatments, or ‘hospital substitute treatments’ so that their members can have, for example, chemotherapy or dialysis in their homes instead of having to go to hospital; and a variety of treatments that can be safely provided outside of hospital.