Incorporating Safety and Quality Measures Into Australia's Activity-Based Funding of Public Hospital Services.

In a bid to improve quality of care, numerous countries have incorporated rewards and penalties into the funding and pricing of hospital services. This paper outlines recent advances in Australia to incorporate financial penalties for hospital acquired complications (HACs) and avoidable hospital readmissions (AHRs) adjustments into the funding of public hospital services. It describes the work in the development of suitable measures to identify episodes, the design of the analytical approach used for risk adjustment and the calculation of the funding implications including dampening effects to account for the level of risk.

Higher fees and out-of-pocket costs in radiotherapy point to a need for funding reform.

Objective To elucidate the policy implications of recent trends in the funding of radiotherapy services between 2009-10 and 2021-22. Method We use national aggregate claims data to determine time trends in the fees, benefits and out-of-pocket (OOP) costs of radiotherapy and nuclear therapeutic medicine claims funded through the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) program. All dollar figures are expressed in constant 2021 Australian dollars.