Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 4 May 1994

Vol. 442 No. 3

Written Answers. - VHI Payment.

Bernard Allen

Ceist:

187 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Health if he is considering a new arrangement whereby the VHI would make a single payment both to the hospital and the consultant for each in-patient procedure; and his views on this principle.

Minister for Health (Mr. Howlin):

I am aware that the concept of a single payment by an insurer to cover both hospital and consultant costs in relation to individual patients has been advanced in a recent discussion paper on health insurance in Australia. The principle of a single payment has a number of obvious attractions, particularly the greater transparency which it would offer to the consumer in terms of overall medical costs. It can also reduce administrative complexities for an insurer. It may also have potential as a cost containment measure but this needs further evaluation.

However, there are a number of policy and technical matters of relevance to its implementation. For example, in order to implement such an arrangement, it would be necessary to have in place, throughout the public and private sectors, information systems in regard to costed casemix which would support developments of this type and would be applied on an agreed basis. The changed interaction between hospitals, consultants and patients would also need to be considered carefully. This is an interesting concept, which will be considered further by my Department as part of the general review of health insurance arrangements which is now in progress.