IHACPA’s response to RACP submission on the Public Hospital Pricing Framework 2023-24

The Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA) has published the Pricing Framework for Australian Public Hospital Services 2023–24 (the Pricing Framework), which has been informed by a number of submissions including the RACP submission.

Our submission focused on addressing:

• the impact of COVID-19
• classifications used to describe and price public hospital services
• the National Efficient Price (NEP)
• the National Efficient Cost (NEC)
• future funding models.

The IHACPA has written to the RACP thanking for our submission and providing some responses specific to our comments:

• It notes costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic response, including staffing costs, changes in patterns of activity and service utilisation and indicates these are incorporated into the development of the NEP
• It has introduced two new classifications for long COVID in the Tier 2 Non-Admitted Care Classification
• It has introduced a number of changes in the development of AN-SNAP Version 5.0 to better capture the complexity of patients such as the utilisation of the Functional Independence Measure Instrument and the Health of the Nation Outcome Scale 65+
• It intends to undertake further investigation of innovative models of care and services alongside work to assess potential improvements in the reporting of virtual care services in national data collections
• It is considering potential changes to the national pricing model to account for innovative models of care and services more broadly.

For further information, please read the IHACPA correspondence.