The price of pain: Questionable billing by doctors rife in Australia

A major investigation into the chronic pain industry has uncovered how Australia's healthcare system is being left open to financial exploitation by some medical practitioners. An analysis of Trudi's records by medical billing expert Margaret Faux found questionable billing from anaesthetists involved in her surgery. Across the full data set, the analysis found: 77 per cent were billed for more complex services than provided 77 per cent were billed for 10 per cent were billed for longer services than provided ; and 10 per cent were billed for ; and 7 per cent were billed for spinal fusions for chronic lower back pain without a diagnosis, in breach of a Medicare rule The de-identified data was supplied by six private health funds, representing 25 per cent of the private health fund industry. Rachel David, CEO of Private Healthcare Australia, says if the findings were applied to the whole industry for spinal surgery, it would signal a huge draining of the health system by some medical professionals. EDITOR'S NOTE: July 19, 2024: Text within a graphic in this article has been amended to make clear that the report indicates that: "Nearly 87 per cent of anaesthetists billed more than 1.5 hours for a surgery that the fluoroscopy code indicated took less than one hour".