Medicare Red Tape Slashed

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PDF printable version of Medicare Red Tape Slashed (PDF 15 KB)

14 December 2009

Patients and doctors are set to benefit from the Rudd Government’s moves to streamline and simplify the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS).

15 measures to simplify the schedule, remove red tape and encourage preventative care will be in place by 1 May 2010.

This is part of the Government’s work to put primary care at the frontline of our health system and ensure that we encourage GPs to deliver quality preventative health.

The Government’s action addresses doctor’s concerns that the current MBS is overly complex, encourages ‘six-minute medicine’ and fails to encourage preventative care, particularly for those with chronic illnesses.

Patients will benefit from longer consultations that will pay a higher fee of $66.45 and will be better supported to manage their chronic conditions or to stay healthy.

The extra costs associated with higher rebates will be offset by the savings in the simplification process, making the reforms cost neutral.

Clearer Medicare item descriptors will give GPs greater confidence and greater reward to spend more time with patients to deal with multiple health problems and provide valuable preventative care.

Item numbers will be reduced by merging similar items, with the number of items in the relevant parts of the schedule reduced from 85 to 33 – a total reduction of 52 items. The explanatory notes will be made clearer and cut in length by more than 40 per cent. After hours items will be simpler and made more attractive for doctors to use.

The much needed review of Medicare items was announced last December. Before taking action the Government consulted extensively with consumers, doctors and other health care providers to develop specific reforms that would deliver results for patients and benefit GPs.

These important reforms are part of the Rudd Government’s broad agenda to shape an improved, patient centred, health system.

They will help Australians stay healthier for longer, better support and reward our valuable GPs and take the pressure off our acute care services.

The Changes to Medicare Primary Care Items - A Fact Sheet for General Practitioners

The Changes to Medicare Primary Care Items - A Fact Sheet for Other Medical Practitioners

MBS Reforms

Reform	Effect
New descriptors for longer consultations	Increases GPs’ confidence to provide and bill for longer consultations, encouraging more holistic and preventive care for patients and less “6 minute medicine.”
Increased fees for longer consultations	Improves incentives for doctors to spend time with patients.
Health Assessments: replacing current structure with 4 time based items	Reduces number of items, removes inequities in fee levels.
Health Assessments: merging Indigenous health assessment items into a single item	Reduces number of items without affecting service provision or data collection
Increasing benefit for Healthy Kids Check provided by a practice nurse	Maintains previous fee relativities that would otherwise be affected by change to time based structure.
Chronic Disease Management: combining the Management Plan and Team Care Review items	Reduces number of items without impacting on service provision or data collection
Simplifying the structure for non-urgent after hours out-of-surgery items	Reduces number of items without affecting service provision or data collection
Simplifying the structure for urgent after hours out-of-surgery items	Reduces number of items, reduces after hours time bands from 3 to 2.
Make non-urgent after hours time bands consistent with those for urgent after hours items.	Encourages GPs to provide services to people at home and in nursing homes after 6pm.
Prolonged attendance items: allowing two or more doctors to bill for an emergency service	Ensures MBS covers fees of all doctors who attend to a patient in imminent danger of death.
A simplified structure for in-hours out of surgery items	Reduces number of items without affecting service provision or data collection
GP Case Conferences: combining like items	Reduces number of items without affecting service provision or data collection
GP Case Conferences: making case conference time periods consistent with clinical practice and other items	Changes service time bands (with corresponding fee changes) to better fit practicalities of GP practices.
Reforming explanatory notes	Explanatory notes currently take up as much of the MBS book as the items themselves and cause confusion and frustration for doctors. These are being rewritten to increase clarity and reduce the number of pages by 40%.
MBS online: a new front end to navigate the Schedule	New search functionality in the online Schedule will help GPs to quickly and easily identify appropriate items and how to use them without having to understand every complex detail of the schedule.

For all media inquiries please contact the Minister’s Office on 02 6277 7220