Informed financial consent

Before you receive treatment as a private patient in hospital, you are entitled to ask your doctor, your health fund and your hospital about any out-of-pocket costs you may incur.

Ask your treating doctor or specialist, wherever practical, how much their fee will be and if you will need to pay a gap. For major treatment, this information should preferably be provided in writing. It is your right to ask for this information before you agree to a proposed treatment. In some circumstances, such as emergency admissions, it will not be possible for your doctor to obtain informed financial consent before the treatment is provided.

If the doctor or their family have ownership or investment in the hospital or day procedure clinic where your procedure is to occur, the doctor should inform you and, at a minimum, make a contemporaneous note of the discussion in your medical record. The doctor may include written confirmation from you that the declaration of this ownership or investment was made. 

You may have more than one doctor involved in your treatment, such as a surgeon and anaesthetist. Your surgeon should be able to advise who else will be treating you and how you can contact the other doctors to seek fee information from them. See also Access Gap Cover.