The heart gets to theatre faster than the nose in new hospital waiting times data

When it comes to shelling out for private health insurance a key reason is to avoid the perceived long waiting times in public hospitals.

But we may be wrong, with new research revealing the waits for elective surgery, ie not emergency operations, have been stable for some years.

If that comes as a surprise so did (at least to me) the existence of a government-run website www.myhospitals.com.au which gives detailed data about the performance of most hospitals.

Earlier this year the FiftyUp Club survey asked “what’s the main reason for having private health insurance”. Sixty one per cent said it was to avoid waits and queues for elective surgery.

The next highest response from more than 3,000 members  was the 35% who nominated a better standard of doctor and care.

But two reports in the past week have largely challenged the conventional wisdom about endless waits for surgery-- unless of course you need a septoplasty (see below).

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported that despite rising admissions waiting times remained relatively stable nationally over the past five years.

In the last financial year 2015-16 the median waiting time, which is the time within which 50% of patients were admitted, was 37 days.

The figures for preceding years have trended up slightly from 35 days and those who waited more than a year for their procedure dropped a tad by to two per cent.

The shortest waiting time, fortunate given it sounds one of the most important, was for a coronary artery bypass graft at just 13 days.

But if you need a septoplaty, it’s when your nasal septum is straightened and put back in the midst of your nose, the wait can be more like 209 days on average.

You can find more data on the MyHospitals website to sort waiting times by hospital, the speciality of surgeons performing the surgery and other items.

It’s also possible to compare the waiting times in 290 hospital emergency departments and how hospitals compare with each other on a range of measures.

These data that’s handy to know in terms of choosing a hospital such as rates of bloodstream infections acquired in hospital and the length of time patients spend in hospital after being admitted for various conditions.

In NSW the news is similar with where wait times for elective surgery actually dropped despite more patients in theatre in the July-September quarter.

The Bureau of Health Information Quarterly Report said 98% of more than 58,000 elective surgeries were performed on time.

So there may be many good reasons to have private health insurance but if you are worried about waiting times look them up on the MyHospitals site and do not always assume the worst.