National Efficient Price Determination

The Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA) publishes an annual National Efficient Price (NEP) Determination for public hospital services for each coming financial year. The NEP underpins activity based funding across Australia for Commonwealth funded public hospital services.

The NEP has two key purposes. The first is to determine of the amount of Commonwealth Government funding for public hospital services, and the second is to provide a price signal or benchmark about the efficient cost of providing public hospital services.

Each NEP Determination includes the scope of public hospital services eligible for Commonwealth Government funding under the National Health Reform Agreement and adjustments to the price to reflect legitimate and unavoidable variations in the cost of delivering health care services.

The NEP is developed in close consultation with all Australian governments on an annual basis.

In September 2018, IHACPA engaged Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers to independently perform a Fundamental Review of the National Efficient Price. The purpose of the review was to research, review and recommend new and/or improved methodologies to determine the NEP, to ensure they remain best practice.

Key publications

Current determination 

Previous determinations

Last updated: 19 March 2025
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