Member feedback call - specialist services

12 May 2026

The Australian Government's House Standing Committee on Health, Disability and Aged Care has invited ASA to comment on its current inquiry into access to and affordability of specialist services in Australia.

The Clinical Committee is inviting comments and feedback from members on the terms of reference for this inquiry:

• Examine current access to medical specialists in cities, regional and rural communities, with consideration of workforce distribution, shortages, waiting times and barriers to recruitment, retention and training.
  
• Examine the effectiveness, transparency and equity of referral pathways from the perspective of patients, primary health care practitioners and medical specialists across the public and private health sectors, with consideration of factors affecting referral patterns and any systemic, regulatory or administrative barriers to the appropriate utilisation of these pathways.
  
• Examine the affordability of specialist services, including out of pocket costs for consultations, diagnostics, procedures, and patient access to specialists through public health services, as well as factors influencing fee setting by specialists in the public and private health sectors. 
  
• Examine the impact on patient outcomes by delays due to cost, distance and waiting times, and broader system impacts on primary care, emergency departments, public hospitals, chronic disease management, as well as impacts on people due to deferred or missed care, and
  Assess innovative and emerging models of care that may improve access to medical specialists.

Parliamentary inquiries set out to gather intelligence across a broad range of stakeholders about a current policy topic the government is considering. We would like to hear from members how these issues mentioned in the terms of reference are problems in the world of sleep specialists in particular. There are likely going to be many similar things happening across different specialties, but we will primarily be addressing the sleep specialty in our submission. The inquiry will also be seeking recommendations about how to solve the problems we raise that are occurring within the sleep specialty.

Members may like to consider these questions as prompts to providing feedback to the Clinical Committee:

• What problems in relation to access and availability of specialist sleep services are you seeing in your practice and your region?
  
• How well are the referral pathways working?
  
• What issues have patients raised in relation to out of pocket costs?
  
• What impact are out of pocket costs, waiting lists, distance and waiting times having on your patients?
  
• What suggestions or recommendations would you make to design a better system?
  

Please send your questions and feedback to the CEO, Marcia Balzer by close of business on Friday 12 June 2026.