Health boards set aside $9m for foreign bad debtors

Six health boards have allowed for $9 million in bad debts this financial year - most from unpaid fees from foreign patients.

Wellington Hospital is owed almost half a million dollars for the treatment of foreign patients.

At the end of January, 226 foreign patients not eligible for Government-funded healthcare owed $477,229 for a variety of treatments and procedures, a hospital spokeswoman said yesterday. The hospital expected to recover about three-quarters of that.

In the last financial year, the board wrote off $134,000 of bad debt.

Initiatives to make staff more aware of who was not eligible meant more foreign patients paid promptly for their treatment.

But bad debts were a fact of life and some foreign patient debt would continue to be written off, she said.

Acutely ill patients were treated immediately and any questions about payment were dealt with at a suitable time.

Hutt Hospital is also owed money. The total foreign patient debt to the end of January was $206,600, a spokesman said. Last year, the board wrote off $21,300 of bad debt.

Health Ministry finance manager John Hazeldine said it was the responsibility of the individual district health board to bill patients not eligible for publicly funded treatment. The ministry also made allowance for some bad debt.

For this financial year, about $9 million was allocated to Bay of Plenty, Capital and Coast, Otago, Auckland, Waitemata and Counties-Manukau district health boards to cover expected bad debt.

Most of that was unpaid fees from ineligible foreign patients.

- NZPA