The Competition Commission’s health market inquiry has delayed the publication of a series of reports that were due to be issued over the course of the next fortnight, saying it needs more time to verify the information it has received and weigh up a series of requests it has received for data access.
The inquiry was established to investigate the nature of the private healthcare market, and determine whether there were barriers to effective competition and patient access. It was established in 2013, and was originally expected to take two years. But it has suffered a series of unexpected delays and has repeatedly extended its deadlines. The final report is now due on December 15.
According to the revised administrative timetable published on its website in December, the inquiry was planning to release eight reports between February 28 and 15 March. These include an analysis of prescribed minimum benefits; a report on supplier-induced demand in private healthcare; analysis reports on facilities, funders and practitioners; research on brokers; and two separate reports on the profitability of private healthcare funders and private health facilities.
The inquiry had received numerous requests for access to the underlaying data for the reports it published in November and December on the medical schemes industry, and had yet to consider all the stakeholders’ views on how best to manage these requests, said the inquiry’s director Clint Oellermann in a written statement. The inquiry had given interested parties until February 20 to make submissions on this issue, but many stakeholders had requested a deadline extension, he said.
The health market inquiry was also still verifying the information it had received for its profitability analysis of private healthcare funders and facilities, he said.
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