The July 2009 Medicare Benefits Schedule is now available

The PDF and RTF versions are now available to view or download from the 1 July 2009 Downloads page.

Category 1 – Professional Attendance

Items 2517 and 2620 have been amended to bring their descriptors in line with the General Medical Services Table (GMST) Regulations.

Items 2710 and 2712 have been altered to clarify language relating to GP mental health items.

Category 2 – Diagnostic Procedures and Investigations

Item 12533 has been amended with the restriction “not being a service to which item 66900 applies”.

Category 3 – Therapeutic Procedures

Perfusion services - Items 22055, 22065, 22070 and 22075 have been updated in line with Section 16(1) of the Health Insurance Act 1973.

Lipectomy - Items 30168 and 30171 have been amended to better reflect the intent of lipectomy procedures.

Double Balloon Enteroscopy – Items 30684 and 30686 have been amended to improve the wording in the item descriptors.

Endoscopic or Endobronchial Ultrasound - Following recommendation from the Medical Services Advisory Committee, items 30696 and 30710 and the associated explanatory note have been introduced for the staging of lung cancers through endoscopic or endobrachial ultrasound.

Neurosurgery – Following a recommendation from the Medical Services Advisory Committee, items 40850 to 40862 have been amended to provide for deep brain stimulation for the movement disorders essential tremor and dystonia. Item 40801 now excludes these conditions.

Breast Ptosis - Items 45557 and 45558 have been amended to better reflect the intent of breast ptosis procedures.

Category 5 - Diagnostic Imaging Services

Item 63476 has been introduced for the initial staging of rectal carcinoma by MRI.

Category 6 - Pathology

The purpose of the changes is to increase fees for a small number of high complexity items in Group P5 - Tissue Pathology, which are currently under-remunerated. These items require a high level of professional input and the increase in fees reflects the costs associated with performing examinations on tissue samples and the reporting of these pathology tests. The increases would be offset by small fee reductions to a large number of more automated, high volume tests elsewhere in the table.