On 2 January 2018 the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Out-of-Pocket Costs was established to provide advice to the Minister on possible reforms covering:

• Best practice models for the transparency of in-hospital medical out-of-pocket costs, and associated medical services in the community;
• Legislation and regulatory barriers to consumer transparency of out-of-pocket medical costs;
• The implementation of best practice models; and
• Other related issues as directed by the Minister.

Media release “Expert committee to consider out-of-pocket medical costs”

Report

The Committee provided advice on improving transparency of medical specialists’ out of pocket costs to the Minister for Health, the Hon Greg Hunt MP, in late 2018.

The full report is available:
Report: Ministerial Advisory Committee On Out-of-Pocket Costs (PDF 909 KB)
Report: Ministerial Advisory Committee On Out-of-Pocket Costs (Word 432 KB)

On 2 March 2019, the Minister announced the Australian Government is taking action on all of the recommendations.
National strategy to tackle specialist out of pocket costs

Further information is available in a Fact Sheet:
More transparency for out of pocket medical costs (PDF 100 KB)
More transparency for out of pocket medical costs (Word 76 KB)

Committee membership

Chair

Professor Brendan Murphy was selected to chair the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Out-of-Pocket Costs.

Committee members

Committee members were selected from the following organisations:

• Royal Australasian College of Surgeons - Mr John Batten
• Australian Medical Association - Dr Andrew Miller
• Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists - Professor Steve Robson
• Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists - Professor David Scott
• Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists - Associate Professor Mark Daniell
• Australian Orthopaedic Association - Dr Lawrie Malisano
• Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand - Professor Mark Frydenberg
• Royal Australasian College of Physicians - Professor Christian Gericke
• Australian Private Hospitals Association - Dr Michael Coglin
• Catholic Health Australia (St John of God Health Care) - Ms Cathy Ryan
• Consumers Health Forum of Australia - Ms Jo Root
• Australian Health Service Alliance- Mr Andrew Sando
• nib - Mr Rhod McKensey
• Australian Society of Anaesthetists - Dr Mark Sinclair

Committee – Terms of Reference

The Terms of Reference guide the work of the Committee.

Communiques

• Meeting 1 – Ministerial Advisory Committee on Out-of-Pocket Costs
• Meeting 2 – Ministerial Advisory Committee on Out-of-Pocket Costs
• Meetings 3 & 4 – Ministerial Advisory Committee on Out-of-Pocket Costs
• Meeting 5 – Ministerial Advisory Committee on Out-of-Pocket Costs