You have a right to know if you have to pay for treatment and medicines and, if so, what the costs will be. Before treatment starts, your doctors and other health care providers must talk to you about the likely fees that you will have to pay (called out-of-pocket costs). This is called informed financial consent.
You can ask for this information to be put in writing, so you can refer to it during your treatment.
There may be costs associated with your treatment that you hadn’t considered. For example, if you have surgery as a private patient, there will be fees for your stay in hospital and for the anaesthetist, as well as the fees for the surgical procedure.
In some instances, such as in the case of an emergency, it is not possible to give informed financial consent before medical care. In such cases, your consent should be obtained as soon as possible afterwards.
→ READ MORE: Ways to manage health care costs
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Prof Sarah Lewis, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, NSW; Kevin Bloom, Senior Social Worker, Haematology and Bone Marrow Transplant, Royal North Shore Hospital, NSW; Danielle Curnoe, Consumer; Alana Fitzgibbon, Clinical Nurse Consultant – Gastro-Intestinal Cancers, Cancer Services, Royal Hobart Hospital, TAS; Hall & Wilcox (law firm); Johanna Jordaan, Consumer; Dr Deme Karikios, Medical Oncologist, Nepean Cancer and Wellness Centre, Nepean Hospital, NSW; Melissa Lawrie, Breast Cancer Clinical Nurse, Cancer Services, Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service, QLD; Jacqueline Lesage, Consumer Reviewer, Cancer Voices NSW; McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer, VIC; Louise Pellerade, 13 11 20 Consultant, Cancer Council WA; Andrew Potter, Consumer; Siân Slade, PhD Candidate, Nossal Institute for Global Health and Non-Executive Director (health, disability sectors), VIC; Paula Watt, Clinical Psychologist, WOMEN Centre, WA.
View the Cancer Council NSW editorial policy.
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