The federal government’s initiative to force specialists’ to reveal their fees on a publicly-searchable website is unlikely to become a reality until 2020, a Senate committee has been told .
The idea of fee transparency website to allow patients to avoid unexpected out-of-pocket charges was first announced by Health Minister Greg Hunt in early March.
But when questioned about its progress during a Senate Estimates hearing, Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy, who is heading the committee responsible for the project, said it was proving to be a complex undertaking and there was still “a fair bit of work to do”.
With an early focus on cancer specialists he said a lot of consultation had yet be undertaken, and the website was unlikely to go “live” until sometime in 2020, he said.
When pushed whether that would be the first quarter of next year, he said “it’s just too early to say”.