Health and Hospital Care

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (14:57): Can the health and wellbeing minister expand on his comment on radio this morning that the Royal Adelaide Hospital wanted to get more from private patients, and is he indicating that preference or priority will now be given to those patients with private health cover ahead of public?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: A portion of the question arises out of the original answer which was broad ranging. I'm going to allow the Hon. Mr Pangallo to ask it. Minister.

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:57): I would make a couple of points in that regard. First of all, in the last couple of years under the atrocious management of the former Labor government, we had a significant reduction in private patient revenue coming into the Royal Adelaide Hospital. It's my view that restoring budget stability to the Central Adelaide Local Health Network involves both maximising revenue and reducing expenditure.

In relation to private patient revenue, just like every other public hospital in Australia, the South Australian public health system will continue to provide South Australian patients with the right that they have under the Medicare agreement, and that is to be treated at a public hospital as a public patient or to be treated at a public hospital as a private patient. When they choose to present as a private patient, then we will get revenue. In terms of whether we are trying to change the face of the South Australian public-private mix, let me make it clear. The budget that the honourable Treasurer tabled in September this year has exactly the same target for private patient revenue that the former Labor government had in their budget.

The other point I would make is that one of the things the KordaMentha report highlights is that the former Labor government let coding administration slip. The significance of coding administration, in my understanding—and if I need to provide the member with more information I will do so—but my understanding is that there are three impacts of that. First of all, if you don't code your activity, if you don't recognise what has been in the wards and submit that into a patient administration system or whatever relevant management tool, you don't actually have a handle on what is going through your unit. You can't plan it properly. Clinicians need proper coding so that they know what activity is there and they can manage it.

The second and third consequences, in my understanding, is revenue implications. You have to code a procedure for Medicare to fund it, and then, secondly, you need to code a procedure to be able to basically invoice a private health provider. The former Labor government's mismanagement of coding at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, highlighted in the KordaMentha report, had an impact both on activity management, the capacity for the hospital to manage itself, and it also had an impact on revenue, both private patient revenue and revenue through Medicare.