A disturbingly high number of people aged 18 to 35 are resorting to “buy now, pay later” loans or tapping their superannuation to pay for health care, a national patient survey has found. Source: The Australian.
Three-quarters of respondents said cost-of-living pressures had also led them to delay visiting a GP or dentist or buying medicine.
The latest Australian Healthcare Index is based on a voluntary survey of 8286 health consumers conducted by Patients Australia and online booking platform Healthengine. This is the seventh iteration of the index.
“The cost-of-living pressures are continuing to have an impact on Australia’s healthcare choices, and it’s getting worse,” Healthengine chief executive Dan Stinton said.
“I mean, 76 per cent of Australians making decisions on their health care based on cost of living is bad enough, but with young people that jumped up to 86 per cent.
“Of those, 44 per cent are using buy now, pay later services to fund their health care.”
The practice of short-term credit loans is most common for healthcare services that command higher out-of-pocket costs.
Patient groups say that can cover anything from specialist fees to private hospital stays, elective surgery and some dentistry.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners vice-president Ramya Raman said it was concerning to see people take out loans or dip into their superannuation to fund health services.
Dr Raman said she believed the issue could be improved if the government boosted Medicare rebates for longer GP consultations which are traditionally used to address more complex health needs and help people to avoid chronic illness.
Health equality is an ongoing concern for the government with work already under way to improve bulk billing rates in general practice, most notably for shorter consultations, and to make more medicines cheaper for people with a Medicare card.
Patients also continued to report concerns about the high cost of private health insurance, with respondents considering reducing or removing their private health coverage.
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Concerns over rise of ‘buy now’ loans to pay for healthcare (By Penny Timms, The Australian)
