19 November 2019 - Reforms to the cost of medical devices have failed to deliver a promised $250m in savings to private health insurers, with new figures revealing a massive increase­ in the volume of items billed by device companies to health funds.

The latest statistics on the privat­e health insurance industry, published on Tuesday by the Australian Prudential Regula­tion Authority, showed the growth in claims for medical devices increased more than 8 per cent during the past year, despite the number of hospital claims only climbing by 0.6%.

The biggest growth in ­medical device claims was in the “general miscellaneous categ­ory”, indicating device companies were billing insurers for larger volumes of items such as bone glues and sponges.

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