General Medicine

» redback - informed support

A part of the package of 'informed consent' is that the problems, procedures required, risks etc have all been properly explained maybe using checklists and simple fact sheets to check the patient really has the claimed understanding.

I think they are serious about it here. The concept of 'informed financial consent' has also been identified. This is where all costs are known upfront...there will be NO surprises. Sometimes there are extra costs even if the public hospital treatment itself is free. I'm in a private fund where "participating" hospitals were up to now, fully covered. But the government has now decided the costs of certain procedures need to be reined in so limits are being set. These are things like hip replacements etc...but not cancer treatments.

-- posted by redback