The Government’s move to investigate the outsourcing of Medicare payments is being presented as an attempt to modernize what is primarily an administrative process – one which can be done more effectively and efficiently by private sector organisations (for example see this editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald) than by a government agency. In question time last week, the Prime Minister argued that the proposal was about finding a ‘more efficient way of transacting with citizens, with patient, consumers’ and denied that it would have any impact on healthcare.
But is Medicare more than simply a passive payment system which can be handed over to an external (and quite probably non-Australian) company without any adverse impact on consumers? David Glance, Director of the UWA Centre for Software Practice has argued in The Conversation that the Government has a poor record in attempting to outsource the management of health-related data.
In the following piece, Margaret Faux, the founder and managing director of one of the largest medical billing companies in Australia, also challenges the Government’s position and argues that the proposal to outsource Medicare payments could lead to long-term and irreversible changes to the fundamental nature of Medicare.
