AMA Gets Clean Bill of Health From ACCC
The Australian Medical Association today welcomed the latest ACCC report to the Senate on the workings of competition policy in private health insurance.
The report states that the ACCC has seen no evidence to indicate that doctors have colluded in their refusal to sign contracts and acknowledged that the AMA-backed no-contract gap cover scheme legislation was "a useful alternative" to contract based insurance schemes.
AMA Federal President, Dr Kerryn Phelps, said that the AMA had been given a clean bill of health by the ACCC in relation to gap insurance.
"However, the ACCC has sent a warning about boycotts. But it is wrong to suggest the AMA would ever organise, promote or even consider a boycott of any health insurance product," Dr Phelps said.
"The ACCC can rest assured that boycotts are not on our agenda. They're not even in our vocabulary. The only thing we would boycott is boycotts themselves.
"We are working hard to develop information for doctors and patients so that they can make their own choices on health insurance products.
"The AMA has developed an informed consent form, a patient information brochure and is pressing the health funds to modify their hard line on pre-existing illnesses.
"It is hard to understand why the ACCC has issued a warning to the AMA about boycotts when it found no evidence of such behaviour.
"However, while the right of free speech prevails in this country, we will continue to voice our legitimate concerns about the dangers of gap insurance products that give health funds control over the way doctors can treat patients.
"We have an obligation to voice our concerns with any product that we believe is not in the best interests of both the medical profession and the patients we serve.
"We will continue to scrutinise health insurance products to ensure they don't restrict the care we can provide to our patients or interfere in the patient-doctor relationship.
"The ACCC needs to understand where we're coming from. We are concerned that some health insurance products may pave the way for the introduction of managed care - an American financing system that rations care and restricts choice. It puts the funds in charge of the doctors at the expense of the patient," Dr Phelps said.