Private Hospitals

In this Guide, we provide an overview of how private hospitals operate in Australia.

Private hospitals play an important role in the Australian Health System, especially for surgery that is classified as ‘elective’.

If you need this type of surgery, it is sometimes hard to know whether you should use the public or private system.

This Guide explains:

• what is a private hospital
• what services private hospitals provide
• how private hospitals operate
• how much private hospitals cost
• when you may decide to use a private hospital instead of a public hospital.