Private health insurance reforms – How will they affect you?

The Australian Government announced on 13 October 2017 a wide ranging package of reforms to make private health insurance simpler and more affordable for Australians.

These include:

• requiring insurers to categorise products as gold/silver/bronze/basic, and use standardised definitions for treatments to make it clear what is and isn't covered in their policies;
• upgrading the privatehealth.gov.au website to make it easier to compare insurance products, and allowing insurers to provide personalised information to consumers on their product every year;
• boosting the powers of the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman and increasing its resources to ensure consumer complaints are resolved clearly and quickly;