Australians are being hit with some of the highest out-of-pocket costs for health care in the world and the ACT can be one of the most expensive parts of the country in which to receive care.
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The Consumers Health Forum will on Monday launch a campaign to convince both sides of politics to take action to reduce the personal cost of health care in Australia.
Consumers Health chief executive Carol Bennett said Australians paid an average of $1075 per person in out-of-pocket costs for health care.
The cost is $94 above the weighted average for industrialised countries.
According to data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, average costs in Australia were only lower than those in Belgium ($1156), the US ($1455), Greece ($1677) and Switzerland ($1988).
"There's a multitude of costs related to seeing a GP, or a specialist, a dentist, filling a script, having a test. It's a combination that's a real killer,'' Ms Bennett said.
"We're talking to people who are cashing in their superannuation, or having to take out a loan or max out their credit cards. These are not examples of small changes, these are cases of tens of thousands of dollars in some instances.
"You should not see that kind of situation in a country like Australia and it is largely a hidden problem.''
The ACT has the lowest bulk-billing rate in Australia - less than 50 per cent for GP appointments, compared to a national rate of more than 80 per cent.
Although the territory has a high rate of private health insurance, privately performed procedures in the ACT are more likely to include gap charges above what Medicare and a private insurance will cover.
In 2010-11, when a gap was charged, the national average fee was $292.50 in Australia and $181.64 nationally.
Ms Bennett said there were a range of options for bringing down personal medical costs.
"It's not going to be a quick fix but we need the government and the Coalition to commit to fixing this problem,'' she said.
"Other governments around the world have had to do it. In the UK, for instance, they have put in place a trial of personal health budgets where they give a bucket of money to the consumer in collaboration with their health professionals about where the money can be spent.
"The problem we've got is that we've got essentially a throughput fee-for-service model of Medicare, which means the provider drives the cost and drives the cost according to the sort of income they want to make, not what's in the consumer's best interest.''
