PATIENTS’ FEES

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12434, 30 April 1926, Page 11

PATIENTS’ FEES

£154,000 WRITTEN OFF COST OF CHARITABLE AID CLOSER REVISION KEPT The Patients’ Fees Committee of the Wellington Hospital Board yesteiday reported that the amount of maintenance fees collected during the year 1925-6 was £19,643, against an estimated sum of £16,500. The amount collected in the preceding year was £17,276 (estimate £13,500). The return of maintenance fees written of monthly totalled £44,634 for the year 1925-6, against £51,481 for the preceding year. Mr A. J. McCurdy, chairman of the Patients' Fees Committee, in a statement on the progress made during the past twelve months, said that in the last year of the system under which fee-collections were in charge of a registrar and his .staff the sum of £10,651 was collected out of arrears and current year’s fees totalling £37,207 19s Bd. In the three years of the fees committee’s existence the collections had increased nearly one hundred per cent., the annual collections being: 1923-2-1, £13,153; 1924-25, £17,276; and 1925-26, £19.643; an increase of £8992, upon the collections of 192223.

The past twelve month’s collections wore approximately fifty per cent, higher than in the first year of tho committee’s activities, and approaching one hundred per cent, above those of the last year of the registrar’s regime. The sum of £154,277 hospital fees had been written off by tho board on the recommendation of the committee during the past three years, as compared with £109.284 written off (luring the previous four years (19 23), three of which were at lower maintenance fees. The writings off at tho instigation of the fees committee were: 1923-24, £47,923 16s sd; 192425, £57,239 7s 4d; and 1925-26, £49,064 7s.

Of these large sums a minor portion of th 6 writing off pertained to accounts of persons of no permanent abode whose whereabouts it was impossible to locate after discharge from the hospital, but the major portion of the £154,277 consisted of accounts of persons who were old age or widow pensioners, chronic invalids, persons in receipt of charitable aid, or others whose circumstances would have entitled them to assistance from the Social Welfare Committee, had they made application for help. These details emphasised the fact that the hospital was functioning in the direction for which it was established, namely, to provide a service for those whose circumstances would not permit of their obtaining medical attention elsewhere.

In order to keep in touch with those who were able to pay for the whole or part of their hospital accoun Is the terms between the sending out of first, second, and final notices had been shortened so that the fees committee had accounts on which nothing had been paid brought under review in six weeks instead of three months, so keeping closer track of debtors who ignored the demands for payment. Mr W. J. Appleton said the report waa a complete justification of the setting up ot the committee, with which he himself had been closely associated in the first year. Air McCurdy had given a tremendous amount of time to this work, and his reply to those who thought the hoard dealt harshly with patients was complete. Only those able to pay were asked to pay. In going into the figures the committee found a lot of old account* which were irrecoverable and a large aim had to be written off, but this would not be so in future, and he was glad to say that people who had the small means were now willing to pay a little now that those wlTo could pay were being made to pay. Replying to Mr Vine, Mr McCurdy said the proportion of fees now collected was about 25 per cent., against 20 per cent, in years gone by. The report, which was considered very satisfactory, was adopted.