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Spending on hospitals

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Expenditure on hospitals reflects the funds spent to pay for the clinical and non-clinical services they provide.

Public and private hospitals both receive funding from the Australian Government, state and territory governments, private health insurance funds and out-of-pocket payments by individuals. However, the relative contributions made by these sources of funds varies across the sectors, reflecting the types of patients they treat, the services they provide, and the administrative arrangements in which they operate

Explore more information about spending on hospitals via the links at the bottom of the page.

Spending on hospitals

All data in these visualisations are available for download in the Data & downloads section of the MyHospitals website.

Spending on hospitals bookmark 1

$62 billion was spent on public hospital services in 2018–19. This was a 4% increase since 2017–18. 52% was contributed by state and territory governments. 

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Spending on hospitals bookmark 2

$79 billion was spent of Australia’s public and private hospitals in 2018–19. This was a 3.7% increase on average each year, since 2013–14.

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Spending on hospitals bookmark 3

$17 billion was spent on private hospital services in 2018–19. This was a 2.5% increase since 2017–18. 50% was contributed by health insurance providers. 

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How much was spent on hospitals?

Public hospitals

  • In 2020–21, recurrent expenditure (excluding capital) on Australia’s public hospitals was $70.5 billion
  • State and territory governments and the Australian Government funded 93% of public hospital expenditure in 2020–21
  • Between 2016–17 and 2020–21, expenditure on public hospitals increased by an average of 4.5% each year in real terms (adjusted for inflation).

Private hospitals

  • In 2020–21, recurrent expenditure on Australia’s private hospitals was $19.1 billion
  • Most private hospital care was funded by the non-government sector (68% or $13.0 billion) including private health insurance and out-of-pocket payments by patients.

Where do I find more information?

More information, Appendixes and caveat information, and data tables are available in Health Expenditure Australia 2020–21.

Definitions of the terms used in this section are available in the Glossary.

More data on Spending on hospitals:

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