OVERVIEW

The Victorian Government is acting to address concerns raised by many sectors of the community about the availability and affordability of both public liability and medical indemnity insurance. It has implemented a wide-range of measures, including reforms to the law of negligence, to address these concerns. This involves balancing the interests of various sectors of the community including consumers, medical practitioners, medical defence organisations (MDOs) and hospitals. In relation to medical indemnity insurance, Victorian measures will be supplemented by other important national initiatives, such as claims and incident data reporting mechanisms. This will enable better monitoring of the nature, incidence and cost of medical negligence claims in the future. Information about Victorian and national initiatives is set out below.

Commonwealth legislation to require MDOs to operate as insurance companies took effect on 1 July 2003. Although this is a Commonwealth Government initiative, information about this change in the law is also set out below.

Many of the concerns being raised in relation to medical indemnity insurance relate solely to medical indemnity cover for private practice. It is important to note that the Victorian Government manages liabilities that arise from public hospital medical indemnity risks through an insurance program between the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority (VMIA). The State Government has also implemented an insurance scheme for rural procedural general practitioners for their public and private work at designated rural public hospitals and bush nursing hospitals in Victoria.