The Independent Hospital Pricing Authority (IHPA) is an independent government agency established by the Commonwealth as part of the National Health Reform Act 2011 to contribute to significant reforms to improve Australian public hospitals.

Vision

To design pricing systems that promote safe, efficient public hospital care for all Australians.

Purpose

To promote improved efficiency in, and access to, safe and high-quality public hospital services, primarily through setting national efficient price and levels of block funding for public hospital activities.

Organisational values

IHPA’s organisational values shape the culture of the agency and form the basis for stakeholder engagement to achieve its vision. Our core values are as follows:

• We act with independence, transparency, fairness, respect, accuracy, and accountability.
• We value collaboration, and demonstrate our values in the way we interact internally, and with our stakeholders and the broader community.
• We value the work, talent and contribution of our staff and create organisation‑wide development strategies to maintain and grow expertise and intellectual capital.
• Our staff act ethically, support a collaborative culture and take pride in their work.

Functions

Pursuant to the National Health Reform Act 2011, the primary functions of IHPA are as follows:

• to determine the National Efficient Price for health care services provided by public hospitals where the services are funded on an activity basis
• to determine the National Efficient Cost for health care services provided by public hospitals where the services are block funded
• to publish the National Efficient Price, National Efficient Cost and other information each year for the purpose of informing decision‑makers in relation to the funding of public hospitals.

IHPA was established to promote improved efficiency in, and access to, public hospital services through the provision of independent advice to Australian governments.

IHPA achieves this by developing and implementing robust systems to support activity based funding for those services (see Pricing for public hospital funding).

In undertaking its work, IHPA is required to consider the actual cost of delivering public hospital services in as wide a range of hospitals as practicable. It is also required to take into account any legitimate and unavoidable variations in costs due to hospital characteristics and patient complexity. IHPA balances a range of national policy objectives, guided by principles contained in the National Health Reform Agreement and its amendments.