Expenditure on non-admitted patient palliative care
Box 1: Non-admitted patient palliative care
According to the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA), non-admitted care encompasses services provided to patients who do not undergo a formal admission process and do not occupy a hospital bed.
For example, non-admitted services may be provided in:
- hospital outpatient clinics
- community based clinics
- patients’ homes (IHACPA 2024).
Further information on how non-admitted patient palliative care is identified through the National Hospital Cost Data Collection can be found in Technical information: Data sources – May release.
In 2021–22 (Figure 2):
- 181 public hospitals reported non-admitted patient palliative care data to the IHACPA, with a hospital cost of $154.2 million on non-admitted palliative care. This represents 7.0% of all subacute care cost ($2.2 billion) and 0.3% of total cost ($46.4 billion) in these hospitals (Table 1).
- The types of costs (line item) linked to salaries and wages accounted for 69% of all non-admitted patient palliative care cost. For salaries and wages streams, nursing accounted for the biggest share (50%), followed by medical and allied health (21% and 11%, respectively).
- For costs by hospital function (cost centre), 9 in 10 (92%) non-admitted patient palliative care costs were for clinical, followed by pharmacy and allied health (4.0% and 2.0%, respectively).
- When combining costs by hospital function and types of costs (cost bucket), wards accounted for the biggest share (64%) of all non-admitted patient palliative care cost – 34% for ward nursing, 16% for ward medical and 14% for ward supplies.
Between 2017–18 and 2021–22 (Figure 2):
- The number of hospitals reporting non-admitted patient palliative care data to the IHACPA increased by 33% (136 to 181). The largest annual increase occurred in 2021–22 – a 15% increase compared with around 3–8% increase for other financial years. Meanwhile, the total number of hospitals reporting data to the IHACPA also increased each year over the same period (453 to 667, or a 47% increase).
- Broadly consistent with the pattern for the number of hospitals reporting non-admitted patient palliative care data, the total expenditure on this care more than doubled from 2017–18 to 2021–22 ($67.7 million to $154.2 million, or $74.0 million to $154.2 million after adjusting for inflation). The largest annual increase occurred in 2021–22 (a 46% increase, or a 40% increase after adjusting for inflation), followed by increases in 2019–20 and 2018–19 (23% and 20% increase, respectively – or a 22% and 18% increase, respectively, after adjusting for inflation).
Figure 2: Expenditure on non-admitted patient palliative care in public hospitals
Figure 2.1: This interactive bar graph shows expenditure on non-admitted patient palliative care in public hospitals, by selected characteristics in 2021–22.
Figure 2.2: This line graph presents number of public hospitals and expenditure on non-admitted palliative care in these hospitals between 2017–18 and 2021–22.
Reference
IHACPA (Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority) (2024) Non-admitted care, IHACPA, Australian Government, accessed 15 February 2024.