Exclusive: Health fund members could face exorbitant out of pocket expenses for devices like hip and knee replacements, stents and pacemakers under major reforms being considered by the federal government. And from 2022 surgeons could also be stopped from selecting the best medical devices to treat their patients, manufacturers of the products claim. At present health funds have to reimburse the full cost of any medical device on the government s prostheses list but Australians are being massively overcharged. Private patients pay double the price of those overseas and 45 per cent more than public hospitals. The changes have been proposed by the Department of Health and private insurers ahead of the May budget which could see an average price set for medical devices.
Exclusive: Doctors would be able to charge patients a new fee for bandages, band aids and other dressings under a controversial proposal labelled a Medicare co-payment by stealth. The government committee in charge of reforming Medicare has proposed general practitioners should be able to bulk bill patients for a consultation but then charge them an additional fee for wound care consumables . Currently these dressings are provided free of charge by most doctors. Solicitor and Medicare administration expert Margaret Faux has warned the new fees amount to a Medicare co-payment cleverly disguised as fees for dressings. The constitution prevents the government controlling these types of medical service charges and, if allowed, doctors could start billing patients for disposable gloves, specimen jars and even disinfectants, she warns.
Written by Kate McDonald on
14 December 2020.
COVID-19, telehealth and Epic s electronic medical record dominated the list of most-read stories on Pulse+IT this year, with news about private equity buyouts of health IT vendors and a troubled project in Queensland that has been put out of its misery also making the list.
The technology resources for COVID-19 that we ran earlier in the year had the most hits, but the top single story for the year was the news that a private equity firm had put in a $503 million bid for ASX-listed The Citadel Group, which owns the Evolution laboratory information system, previously known as Auslab, along with Charm s oncology solution.
Written by Kate McDonald on
15 December 2020.
Just as big uptake of telehealth marked the first quarter of the eHealth year in Australia, developments in electronic prescribing increased in pace in the second. As part of a range of measures to help get medications to patients quickly and safely, the federal government announced it would fast-track the roll out of electronic prescribing, having made the legislative changes allowing eScripts as a legal alternative to paper late last year.
In March, the Department of Health proposed a development sprint with prescribing and dispensing software vendors to get the majority of GPs and pharmacies with the capability within eight weeks. While our survey of GP software vendors showed a couple would be ready with their fast-tracked versions, there was no way it would reach 80 per cent within two months. The department s agreement to allow image-based prescribing, with photos of scripts emailed or faxed to the pharmacy, proved a bit more