Government moves to require specialist fee disclosure

The second reading of the Health Legislation Amendment (Improving Choice and Transparency for Private Health Consumers) Bill 2026  was heard in the House of Representatives yesterday.

Following second reading speeches and debate, the Bill was agreed to by the House and has now been transmitted to the Senate.

The Bill would require medical specialists to publish their fees on the Medical Costs Finder (MCF) website, giving patients comparable information about how much procedures like a joint replacement or colonoscopy will cost them in the private sector.

At present, participation in the Medical Costs Finder is voluntary. That approach has failed dismally, with just 88 of more than 6,000 eligible specialists choosing to list their fees.

Current policy settings permit specialists to charge what they want. As this chart suggests, they appear to be charging what their local market will bear:

Because supply is so limited, there are concerns that price transparency may result in the unitended consequence of specialists aligning their fees (at the upper end), thus resulting in higher fees overall.

This is a legitimate concern. Another problem is that, in the absence of other information, price may be interpreted as an indicator of quality. There’s no evidence for such an association (not least because it would imply that ACT specialists are three times better than their South Australian and Tasmanian counterparts).

So, price transparency should be accompanied by additional information and education for patients, and their referring GPs, as well as stronger regulation of fees. Additional information should include outcomes such as complication rates – as proposed by Monique Ryan, Independent member for Kooyong – as well as patient-reported metrics.

The Bill also prohibits the practice of ‘phoenixing’ where private health insurers close a product then release a very similar one at a higher price. A deceptive practice that’s rightly being curtailed.