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New Zealand's biggest health insurer has called for the 330,000 Aucklanders with health insurance to stand up and fight a possible lab-test cost shift.
The stinging attack from Southern Cross came after the Herald revealed Auckland's three district health boards planned to publicly consult on scrapping public funding for private lab tests.
The $5.6 million saving to the health boards would backfire, costing the region's private and public health users more in the long run, Southern Cross Healthcare Group chief executive Dr Ian McPherson said.
The average lab-test claims for Southern Cross members were close to $90 per test.
"The idea is nothing more than a blatant cost-shift from the public health system to New Zealand's private patients. And in many cases the sums will be significant," Dr McPherson said.
"If they go ahead with this, the DHBs will effectively be giving their lab contractors the opportunity to charge private patients what they like, and allowing them to add an administration fee on top."
Wellington's Capital and Coast and Hutt Valley district health boards scrapped funding lab tests ordered by private specialists in 2006. That led to a $1.6 million bill for the tests in the first 10 months, with some tests costing $2400, he said.
"Auckland now wants to follow suit, and we encourage our members to make their views plain."
The Auckland boards' laboratory project manager, Tim Wood, told the Herald this week that any consulting on the proposed changes would allow the boards information to use if and when they needed to make a decision, rather than having to consult specially.
Otago and Southland district health boards both voted earlier this month to scrap the public funding.
But the "cost shift" was penalising people who were taking the strain off the public health system by paying for their own care, Dr McPherson said.
New Zealanders who pay to have private treatment saved the public system over $600 million for elective procedures each year.
"The private system does elective surgery for around 150,000 people each year. That's more than the entire public system does. ...
"Why burden people further who are taking responsibility for their own health care? The Government should be thanking them and making it easier, not harder."
Dr McPherson said there was a disturbing trend for health boards to regard private patients as wealthy individuals who could afford the additional costs of laboratory testing.
But one-third of the population - 1.4 million New Zealanders - had health insurance, and it was "a nonsense to pretend they were all wealthy people with no financial worries".
