The Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) is currently helping 14,000 private healthcare consultants submit fee data in the lead-up to fees going live on its website by the end of this month (Indpendent Practitioner).
Since early January, PHIN has been asking consultants to provide it with information about the fees they charge to their private self-pay patients. Consultants must provide this information as a requirement of Article 22 of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) order, which followed a long-running inquiry into private healthcare.
The fee information to be published includes:
- The fees charged to self-pay patients for initial consultations;
- Follow-up consultations;
- Those procedures consultants perform routinely.
PHIN is asking consultants to provide their fees for procedures that they perform, as indicated by the hospitals. Consultants can also provide information about clinics and consulting rooms where they see patients. Many consultants have package price arrangements in place with hospitals that incorporate their fees as well as hospital costs and these prices are also required. Where these arrangements are in place, hospitals have been asked to provide this information. While there is currently no legal requirement on hospitals to provide this information to PHIN, it has been asked of them in order to support a commitment to transparency of costs for patients.
The fees publication requirement from the CMA applies to all consultants working in private healthcare. This includes the submission of fee information for those consultants who may only see patients in outpatient units and facilities as well as consulting rooms.
In the coming months, PHIN will be working with hospitals to promote the collection of feedback from patients so that they can provide consultants with patient satisfaction information. PHIN is progressing its work on the publication of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) data.
Read more
- Independent Practitioner: https://www.independent-practitioner-today.co.uk/2019/04/better-get-clear-on-transparency/