Australian Medical Association

The AMA encourages good IFC practice and the provision of information about medical fees to patients. Patients should always ask their doctor about his/her fees, and the fees of other doctors involved in their care, before going to hospital as a private patient.

You can find a range of useful IFC information produced by the AMA on medical gaps and questions to ask your doctor on this page.

"let's talk about fees..." campaign products

In November 2008 the Council of Australian Governments' agreed to introduce a nationally-consistent approach to activity-based funding for public hospital services to allow comparisons of efficiency across public hospitals.

Subsequently, the Australian Government asked the Productivity Commission to examine and report on the relative performance of the public and private hospital systems. In June 2009, the Productivity Commission released a paper seeking information and feedback on a range of issues including treatment costs, including out-of-pocket patient expenses and rates of fully-informed financial consent, rates of hospital-acquired infections and other relevant performance indicators.

Below are the two submissions the AMA made to the Productivity Commission on the Performance of public and private hospital systems. The AMA submissions also address the Commission's term of reference on informed financial consent.

This kit assists doctors in providing information to patients about the costs of their treatment.

Let's talk about fees

IFC Survey

The AMA has a long history of promoting the principle of obtaining Informed Financial Consent (IFC) from patients as part of the doctor-patient relationship, and AMA's policy position on this issue is clearly stated in relevant AMA policy resolutions.