Associated Anaesthetists Group

16/10/2023

Today is National Anaesthesia Day. The theme this year is "Caring for our sickest patients".

Australia and New Zealand are two of the safest places in the world to have an operation under anaesthesia. But complications arising after surgery are the t...

16/10/2022

Today is National Anaesthesia Day. This year's theme is "Anaesthesia & Children".

Our theme this year is “Anaesthesia and children: Caring for your kids”.

09/12/2021

The AMA prepares an annual “report card” on private health insurance. The report for 2021 has just been released. It provides an overview of how private health care is paid for and some useful comparisons between different health insurance products. The costs our patients face can vary enormously depending on which insurance they have, and it is posssible to change insurer without penalty in many cases.

The AMA’s 2021 Private Health Insurance Report Card highlights the trends that exist for private health insurance and the impacts and problems these trends continue to cause. It also provides help for people who want to understand their private health options because health insurance is hard to na...

17/10/2021

It's National Anaesthesia Day. This year the theme is "Anaesthesia and having a baby"

You might not need the care of an anaesthetist when you’re carrying and delivering your baby, but it’s good to know what your options are. We developed this ...

02/10/2020

The AMA prepares an annual “report card” on private health insurance. The report for 2020 has just been released. It provides an overview of how private health care is paid for and some useful comparisons between different health insurance products. The costs our patients face can vary enormously depending on which insurance they have, and it is posssible to change insurer without penalty in many cases.

https://ama.com.au/system/tdf/documents/AMA%20Private%20Health%20Insurance%20Report%20Card%202020.pdf

01/11/2019

The AMA has released its annual score card for insurers. This provides a lot of detail about which funds provide the best cover and the fewest gaps. Many funds perform well, but there are some remarkable outliers visible in the tables, particularly in the percentage of patients receiving services without a “gap”.

https://ama.com.au/system/tdf/documents/AMA%20Private%20Health%20Insurance%20Report%20Card%202019_1.pdf

31/10/2019

New changes to Medicare and insurance coverage for anaesthesia.

From November 1, the Commonwealth Government is changing coverage for some anaesthesia services. Most of the changes involve a reduction in coverage which may mean higher out-of-pocket costs (“gaps”) for some patients. We send a detailed estimate to all of our patients who are expected to have a “gap” as soon as we receive a booking from the surgeon.

The ASA has published an information sheet about the changes:

15/10/2019

Today is National Anaesthesia Day. The theme this year is “Preparing for your anaesthesia”.

Anaesthesia is one of the greatest discoveries of modern medicine. In fact, many of today’s operations, especially for the very young, very old, or very ill ...

30/06/2019

Reassuring news for parents.

There has been a lot of concern about whether general anaesthesia is safe for infants and children, particularly whether having a general anaesthetic might cause problems with learning. Three major studies have reported in the last year which have not found problems.

The GAS study was coordinated from the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne and was published in The Lancet. It was described in the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/well/family/one-exposure-to-anesthesia-in-children-does-not-cause-learning-disabilities-new-research-shows.html

The MASK and PANDA studies from the USA were also reassuring and all three studies were covered in an editorial in Anesthesiology:

https://anesthesiology.pubs.asahq.org/article.aspx?articleid=2737004

Although earlier studies in animals suggested a connection, the new research should reassure parents whose children need surgery, experts say.

24/10/2018

Reduced cover for some GU Health customers.
From November 1, GU Health will be reducing their contribution to some medical bills. In future if a bill is more than $400 more than their Gap Cover amount, GU health will reduce their contribution to the bill by about 70%, leaving a much larger out-of-pocket cost for the patient. This is still more generous cover than that provided by their parent company, NIB.