Insurance: Impossible to guarantee the quality of any work done outside Australia

Plans revealed by NIB (The National Private Australian Health Insurance) to sell offshore surgical packages to Australians who want the cheaper prices offered by medical systems in Asia, as well as sh

Plans revealed by NIB (The National Private Australian Health Insurance) to sell offshore surgical packages to Australians who want the cheaper prices offered by medical systems in Asia, as well as shorter waiting times, but with guarantees about safety and quality.

Australia’s dentists have hit back at proposal by the health fund NIB to enter the lucrative medical tourism market, claiming that it would be impossible for an insurer to guarantee the quality of any work done outside Australia.

Medical tourism is a growing industry internationally and, although there is growth in areas of core medical treatments such as knee reconstructions, most Australians travelling to Asia are pursuing either dental work or cosmetic surgery.

Australian Dental Association federal president Karin Alexander said that, while prices for offshore treatment seemed cheaper, there was no way that the quality of work performed overseas could be guaranteed, and she questioned NIB’s claim that it could “quality-assure” work done in Asia.

“We have a very high level of regulation in Australia to ensure safety and we also have rules about security of the workforce and those elements aren’t there in most Asian countries,” she said.

“Dentistry is rarely a one-off operation, but instead requires ongoing consultation, and that requires an individual dentist who knows an individual and what their issues are. Any work done overseas can’t really be followed up anywhere in Australia.”

She said dentists in Australia were all required to be university-educated and registered with the Dental Board of Australia, an independent body that had the power to make investigations of any complaints.

She said the sort of dental work that Australians went to Asia for was generally high-end operations such as crown work or implants.

“What worries me about having health funds try to provide some sort of quality assurance measures is just how independent they would be. If they employ someone to check out Asian dentists, would that person be fully independent or would they be paid for by the health fund?”

The Australian Medical Association has expressed similar reservations about the NIB scheme, but operators already in what is a fast-growing industry say the Australian medical industry is simply protecting its patch.

Daniela Pratico, a director of Sydney-based Medi Makeovers, said that it was not only cheaper prices, but also the shorter waiting times that were driving the growth in medical tourism.

Ms. Pratico, who has been operating her business for seven years, said that when she started she would be sending five Australians a month to Asia, but was now sending about 50 a month.

Globally, medical tourism is estimated to be a $100 billion industry, growing at 20 per cent to 30 per cent a year, and a University of Technology Sydney researcher has put the value of cosmetic surgery performed on Australians overseas at $300 million or more a year.

Medical Travel Quality Alliance president Julie Munro told The Australian from Bangkok that her organization was endeavoring to provide assurances about the quality of medical treatment in Asia, and had published a list of the top 10 hospitals in the world for medical tourism, and seven of them were in Asia.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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