IHACPA’s response to RACP submission on the Public Hospital Pricing Framework 2023-24
Date published:
03 Feb 2023
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.