The Federal Government is ploughing another $17 million into its controversial specialist fees website, after admitting efforts to promote the platform stalled due to the pandemic.

The new funding, revealed in 2020-21 federal budget papers, will be used to ‘enhance’ the Medical Costs Finder website, by including voluntary fee disclosure from specialists “to increase the transparency of out-of-pocket costs”.

“This will enable patients and their referring doctors to be more informed when choosing a specialist and help people to better understand the value in having PHI [private health insurance],” according to the budget papers.

The papers also reveal an education campaign to raise patient awareness of the website was paused “due to priorities shifting to the COVID-19 pandemic”.