Editor's note

Many of you would have been to see a specialist at least a few times in your life, and experienced the same feeling when you left: bill shock. So why is it specialists in Australia are up there with the most expensive in the world? Here, Stephen Duckett points to a few possible reasons, none of which the government couldn’t solve.

Alexandra Hansen

Section Editor, Health and Medicine

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Some specialists charge a premium because they claim to be exceptional in their field. But how are patients to know if that’s true? from www.shutterstock.com

Why it costs you so much to see a specialist – and what the government should do about it

Stephen Duckett, Grattan Institute

To work out how to reduce the out-of-pocket costs for specialist care, we first need to identify why they are so high.

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