Hospital fees are to be adjusted in a move that will raise some costs and lower others, the health minister told the House of Assembly yesterday.

Kim Wilson told MPs the changes will be “revenue-neutral to the hospital” and said the relative value method used was a “rational system” in line with reviews.

Ms Wilson said: “At present some BHB fees are priced higher than international benchmarks, while others are priced much lower.

“The intent is to remove this discrepancy by applying a rational, internationally accepted standard to set BHB’s [Bermuda Hospitals Board] fees.

“The purpose of this change is as a first step to deliver on the Government’s promise to review healthcare costs, which, in the long term, will allow us to contain insurance premiums.

“At present we know how much we are spending overall — $701 million in total, or just over $11 thousand per person, are the most recent figures.

“But we don’t know if we are spending it wisely, or whether we are paying fairly. To enable us to understand truly what we are spending on, measure whether we are spending it properly, we need a rational fee system.”

Ms Wilson added that the relative value method would “move us in the right direction, and provide us a stronger foundation for evaluating our services and programmes”.

The same relative-value scale has already been introduced for diagnostic imaging, where fees for procedures like mammographies went up while others, like X-rays, went down.

• To read Kim Wilson’s statement in full, click on the PDF under “Related Media”