We paid $5.4 billion in benefits for our customers this year and announced our lowest average premium rate increase in 18 years. We worked hard to ensure our contracts with all of Australia’s major private hospital groups delivered better healthcare outcomes while keeping costs down. We have done this while launching a new digital self-service portal for chiropractors, dentists and other healthcare providers reducing the manual work involved in managing their claims.
Targeting out-of-pocket costs
Our new dental network saved customers $3 million in out-of-pocket costs in its first six months.
With dental the most common extras claim, we created our Members’ Choice Advantage network to give customers more value from their extras cover, including two 100% back dental check-ups every year from a network of more than 900 dental practices across Australia. We’re now working to expand the program to optical.
We updated our Find a Provider tool to give customers an overview of how much and how often specialists charge out-of-pockets, because we believe the healthcare industry needs to be more upfront about costs.
Our productivity program delivered savings of $20.4 million this year – and we’re targeting a further $50 million over the next three years. We’ve also continued to develop our program to identify, recover and prevent improper payments and claims.