In 2019 Zambia introduced a National Health Insurance Scheme to help more people access healthcare and move the country closer to universal health coverage.
Articles on Out of pocket costs
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In an emergency, you can’t always use your private health insurance. And even if you do, you can face these out-of-pocket costs.
A ‘no gap’ private health arrangement sounds great, but you may not be able to choose your specialist. Here’s what else you need to know.
How much? This proposal could help take the stress and financial guesswork out of having a baby. But not everyone agrees.
Specialists’ fees are high, vary across specialties and across geographical regions. And you can search for who’s charging what near you.
While some policies have made the price of certain health care services more transparent, they don’t guarantee patients won’t be surprised by how much they’ll need to pay out of pocket.
The aim is to make health care affordable and sustainable. Our new research shows how.
People who need the most health care – the poor and the chronically ill – miss out on care the most. But there are ways to reduce this inequity.
Unlike health care for the rest of our body, dental care mostly comes out of our own pocket – and it’s not cheap. Many Australians go without and their health suffers.
Seeking and making sense of specialist fees is an unfair burden to place on vulnerable patients. A website might be helpful for some – but health professionals need to be held to higher account.
New figures show we are spending less on health than we used to but it mightn’t last, and surgeons and dentists are charging more.
Yes, doctors’ fees should be transparent, but that requirement alone doesn’t go far enough to combat “bill shock”. Specialists should also be required to set fees that are “fair and reasonable”.
Australia was ranked top of the world in terms of the efficiency of our health care system and health outcomes, but only seventh in terms of equity.
To work out how to reduce the out-of-pocket costs for specialist care, we first need to identify why they are so high.
Health policy was an important factor in the election outcome, but one of the most important issues in the health sector – the impact of out-of-pocket costs – was mostly ignored.
Top contributors
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Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Health Economics, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Health Economics and Director, Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School, Monash University
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Professor, Centre for Health Policy, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne
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Senior associate, Grattan Institute
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Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, UMass Amherst
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Foundation Fellow and Data Analyst, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Women's Health Economics, University of Technology Sydney
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Postdoctoral Research Associate, Health Services Management, University of Technology Sydney
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Lecturer and Researcher in the Department of Community and Family Medicine, University of Zambia
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John Goss is a Friend of The Conversation.
Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Research Institute, University of Canberra
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Lecturer & Researcher in Public Healths, University of Zambia
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Senior Associate, Grattan Institute