The Federal Government’s specialist fee website is now actually displaying some specialists’ fees, albeit with seemingly only four doctors currently on board.
Almost four years after being announced by former health minister Greg Hunt, the cost finder site finally began accepting fee information from individual doctors in December 2022, including cardiologists, gastroenterologists and doctors from half a dozen surgical subspecialties and O&G.
But it appears the revamped database will remain of limited use to patients for the time being as there currently appears to be no listings for most services on the site.
The Department of Health says cardiologists can input their fees for 23 services including initial and follow-up appointments and a variety of procedures such as coronary angiography, heart catheterisation and stent insertion.
But while average out-of-pocket costs and bulk-billing rates are displayed – as on the previous version of the site – the limbic was unable to see any listings from individual cardiologists when we checked last week.
Instead the site comes up with a message that says: “No specialists have currently volunteered their fees”.
Likewise, participation from gastroenterologists appears to be limited as the limbic was able to find listings from only three – two of whom were in Melbourne and one in Tamworth, NSW.
How many doctors are on the site?
Specialty | No. services agreed for inclusion | No. doctors appearing on the site (17 Feb 23)* |
Cardiology | 23 | 0 |
Cardiothoracic surgery | 12 | 0 |
Gastroenterology | 7 | 3 |
Gen surgery -abdominal | 20 | 0 |
Gen surgery – breast | 11 | 0 |
O&G | 21 | 1 |
Ophthalmology | 28 | 0 |
Orthopaedic surgery | 24 | 0 |
ENT surgery | 6 | 0 |
Plastic surgery | 24 | 0 |
Urology | 13 | 0 |
*Based on searches for initial consultant physician or specialist consultations
The department has stressed it is “encouraging specialists to participate”, including by reaching out to specialist colleges, craft groups and the AMA, as well as setting up information stands at medical conferences and running webinars for potential participants.
The limbic tuned into one of these hosted by six health department officials on Thursday night, where we were the only audience.
Nevertheless, officials at the webinar defended the site, stressing the revamp was in its early days and exposure had been limited so far.