Ophthalmology New Zealand (ONZ) has had a busy start to the year, working behind the scenes on the introduction of minimally-invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) and devices into private ophthalmology and member queries.

The annual Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Ophthalmology (RANZCO) NZ Branch meeting, held this year at the Hilton in Auckland, was another great opportunity for New Zealand ophthalmologists to meet the board members of ONZ, to hear the issues members face and to let those members know about the work that goes on behind the scenes by ONZ.

The ONZ board consists of six members: Drs Michael Merriman, Kevin Taylor, Peter Hadden, Rebecca Stack, Dean Corbett and Shenton Chew, who all work tirelessly and voluntarily on the issues that are outside RANZCO’s normal remit. ONZ also works closely on a number of issues with RANZCO as many of our board members are also on committees and in advisorial roles with RANZCO.

The key issues ONZ acts on range from commercial insurance matters to how to serve the ophthalmologists and their patients better. Of necessity, many of our discussions are around insurance relationships... but more about that later.

Regarding representing and supporting our members, we now have two key events as part of our members’ calendar: our Clinical Leaders Forum, facilitated by Dr Rebecca Stack; and our Business Forum.

Our Clinical Leaders Forum was held in Wellington in March and covered updates from the EAG (expert advisory group), RANZCO, the Ministry of Health and Health Workforce New Zealand and reviewed the new glaucoma and macular degeneration guidelines and RANZCO’s work on managing poorly-performing doctors (see p10).

ONZ Business Forum – The Other Matters

It was pleasing to see a good turnout at this year’s Business Forum, The Other Matters, despite the difficult timing around the RANZCO NZ meeting. We would like to thank our sponsors for their support of this event, especially Legacy Insurance for supporting our welcome drinks. It was great to relax together at the Hilton Bar.

Despite the time restrictions, we still managed to cover a number of important topics at this year’s Business Forum including the legal structuring of our businesses, risk, engaging staff and ONZ strategy, plus an interesting presentation from Dr Stephen Childs, Southern Cross Healthcare’s chief medical officer.

Feedback on both the Clinical and Business Forum events was positive and helps us to format a needs-based agenda for the next Forums.

Insurance relationships

It is no surprise to NZ Optics readers that costs in health care are rising and that providers have been forced to shoulder the burden of these costs to ensure a healthy public and private sector. There are many publications discussing the underlying factors in current and projected cost rises, but these are mainly due to an aging demographic needing more care; increasing life expectancies; rising costs in technology and aids; and the rising cost of pharmaceuticals.

As these costs impact on the private health insurance industry bodies, and they struggle to maintain their funds, pressure is brought to bear on providers to shoulder the increased costs. ONZ seeks to support its members whilst ensuring a fair and transparent playing field for members, insurers and consumers of health care. Thus, we are working with insurance bodies to form robust relationships and provide consultation on clinical matters. We also made a recent submission to the Insurance Contracts Review, conducted by the MBIE, highlighting the need for reform in New Zealand Health Insurance law and identifying strategies used in other jurisdictions.

ONZ also pointed out the perils of obscuring the rising costs in health care, encouraging a system which improves transparency and choice for private health consumers while limiting cost shifting to providers. If we cannot limit this shift to providers, it will become increasingly unattractive for providers to go into private care and the burden shifts to the public system.