Private health insurance claims for patients waiting to be discharged to aged care homes have doubled as older Australians spend almost twice as many days in hospital beds as they did six years ago.
The trend emerged in high-cost claims data released on Friday, which showed health funds paying up to $700,000 for a single hospital stay.
Bed block that occurs when patients are stranded in hospitals awaiting discharge to aged care is a growing headache for hospitals, governments, and health insurers. Credit: Marija Ercegovac
A shortage of residential care beds and a rise in neurocognitive disorders and mental health conditions including dementia, delirium and depressive disorders are driving long and expensive hospital stays for patients over 65, the analysis by peak body Private Healthcare Australia (PHA) suggests.
Health insurers, alarmed by the trend, have joined state and territory governments in urging the federal government to find a long-term solution to aged care access issues which have compounded bed block across the country’s health system.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a state government with public hospitals, or private health insurers, or veterans affairs – this is a problem throughout the whole sector,” said PHA chief executive Rachel David.
David said addressing the rising cost of aged care places, increasing the workforce, and new approaches such as transitioning patients from hospitals into “step-down” hotel rooms, could help alleviate pressure on the health system.
“I’m not sure that simply more money is going to fix it,” she said. “We do not have sufficient numbers of people to care for the number of people who are coming through into aged care, and the actual places are becoming increasingly expensive.”
Australian health funds paid out $16.6 million last financial year to hospitals caring for patients receiving non-acute care while awaiting discharge to aged care. This is more than double the $7.3 million paid out in 2018-19, the last full financial year before the COVID-19 pandemic.
