Vivas calls for changes to private bed charges

Vivas Health is pressing the Government to drop its requirement that all health insurance companies must cover private beds in public hospitals, following the recent 25 per cent increase in charges for such facilities.

Vivas chief executive Oliver Tattan said yesterday the company would consider introducing a new insurance plan to cover only treatment in private hospitals if the Government abandoned the current rules.

He said Vivas believed it was unfair that the Government could act as the seller of private facilities in public hospitals, set the charges as it saw fit, and also oblige insurance companies to buy them.

Mr Tattan said that following the recent 25 per cent increase in charges in the Budget, private beds in public hospitals now cost health insurers more than private beds in many private hospitals, with the exception of a limited number of high-technology hospitals.

"The matter once again raises the untenable nature of the conflicted position of the Minister for Health as supplier to the private health insurance market, owner of the dominant insurance statutory body and regulator of the market through the Health Insurance Authority [ HIA]," he said.

The HIA supervises the regulations that require insurers to include cover for private beds in public hospitals in all health insurance products at the price chosen by the Minister and prohibits alternatives by including these beds in minimum benefits regulations, according to Mr Tattan.

"We view this conflict as interfering with the normal functioning of the free market and would ask that the Minister consider its appropriateness under European competition law," he said.

Mr Tattan said that he believed the cost of private beds in public hospitals had now reached the full economic rate.

He questioned recent claims by the Government that the cost of some private facilities in public hospitals was still 20 per cent below the full economic rate.

Mr Tattan said if the Government believed this then it should test its thesis by allowing the market to decide on which beds to buy.

He said the levels of price increases announced in the Budget had not been accompanied by any agreed or proposed savings in terms of medical efficiency, quality of patient outcomes, safety measures, infection control, guaranteed and timely patient access to facilities, or any significant attempt to ensure value for money.

"We've seen a 72 per cent increase in the charges for private beds in public hospitals in the three years since Vivas Health entered the Irish health insurance market," he said.

"The latest unilateral price increase without warning, never mind consultation, makes financial planning extremely difficult for regulated entities.

"Yet again, Government has taken a decision that will limit and restrict the competitors of the State-owned insurer much more than its own favoured VHI," according to Mr Tattan.