Under- and Postgraduate Education in Health Economics for Australia's Medical Practitioners: Time for Change?

Directly or indirectly, medical practitioners influence health-care policy and spending through their clinical decision-making. As medical expertise and technology has grown, and patient choice has been empowered by the consumer movement, there are now many more medical interventions than can be accommodated in a finite national health-care budget. We reviewed the Australian Medical Council, Medical School and Medical Specialist curricula. In Australia, medical students, doctors and medical specialists do not appear to have specific health economics education that would improve skills to select beneficial and cost-effective care. We propose a framework for medical practitioner health economics education.