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Private care and public waiting.

Stephen J Duckett1

  • 1School of Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC 3086, Australia. s.duckett@latrobe.edu.au

Australian Health Review : a Publication of the Australian Hospital Association
|February 3, 2005
PubMed
Summary

Expanding private healthcare may not reduce public hospital waiting times. Increased private activity was found to be inversely related to public patient waiting times, suggesting caution for policymakers.

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Area of Science:

  • Health Services Research
  • Public Policy
  • Healthcare Economics

Background:

  • Public hospital waiting times are a significant political concern.
  • A common policy suggestion involves increasing private sector involvement to alleviate public wait times.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between private healthcare activity and public hospital waiting times.
  • To test the hypothesis that greater private sector engagement reduces public waiting times.

Main Methods:

  • Secondary analysis of hospital activity data from 2001-02.
  • Statistical examination of the correlation between private sector activity and median waiting times for public patients.

Main Results:

  • A negative correlation was observed: as private sector activity increased, median waiting times for public patients also tended to increase.
  • The proportion of public patients was inversely related to median waiting times.

Conclusions:

  • Policymakers should exercise caution when assuming that increased support for the private healthcare sector will decrease waiting times in the public sector.
  • Findings suggest that private sector expansion may not alleviate, and could potentially exacerbate, public hospital waiting times.

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