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The following articles have the tag funding
THE AMA has said it is “astounded” that the latest draft National Primary Health Care Strategic Framework – developed by both Commonwealth and state governments – contains no new funding for the sector in the immediate future.
THE Commonwealth and state governments remain at a stalemate over provision of funding for 182 international medical student intern places after two weeks of negotiations between the parties failed to finalise a deal.
THE Commonwealth and state governments remain at a stalemate over provision of funding for 182 international medical student intern places after two weeks of negotiations between the parties failed to finalise a deal.
PROTESTS are being planned against a Queensland government decision to pull $2.5 million in funds from an HIV awareness and support group, Healthy Communities.
THE major parties have staked out Queensland general practice as a key battleground in this weekend’s state election, as AMA Queensland laments the focus on “personality politics” over policy debate.
THE West Australian government is refusing to intervene as two neighbouring divisions run competing state-subsidised after-hours clinics – next door to each other – following a dispute over a government contract.
THE Federal Government is facing fresh calls today to give assurances about the future of medical research funding following reports that Labor would likely back down from a widely anticipated $400 million cut to the NHMRC budget. Reports from News Limited have indicated that a proposal to cut research funding had been rejected by a Government expenditure review committee headed by Treasurer Wayne Swan. As MO went to press, the Labor Government had neither confirmed or denied the rumours of cuts to NHMRC funding which have incited outcry from the medical research sector and sparked nationwide protest ...
THE future of the Gillard Government’s broad health system reforms remains in doubt amid growing pressure from health groups and the opposition for Labor to prove its commitment to reform. As Federal Parliament resumes this week, the Australian Health Care Reform Alliance (AHCRA), of which the RACGP and the RDAA are members, has called for the Government to stand by its pledge to deliver health reforms funded by agreements with the states over GST revenue. In recent days the Federal Government has refused to rule out dumping its former leader Kevin Rudd’s proposed suite of health and ...
DIVISIONS of General Practice have expressed concern about how Medicare Locals will be funded, with fears Government contracts will not allow adequate flexibility to respond to local needs. In response to a recently released Federal Health Department discussion paper detailing plans for the new organisations, the AGPN has warned the Government against dictating how Medicare Locals are to spend government-allocated funding. “Funding contracts that are too restrictive and program driven, as opposed to being needs driven, will stymie the ability of Medicare Locals to design programs and service models that address the specific needs of their local communities,” the ...
GPs have renewed calls for the Federal Government to reveal its financial modelling of the Practice Nurse Incentive Program following a belated clarification that the program budget could be far greater than $390 million. As of 2012 practices will be paid $25,000 per full-time equivalent GP to hire a practice nurse. However, several nurse MBS items will be scrapped, leading GPs to fear they will be left out of pocket. It was widely thought the program budget was $390 million over four years, however MO has learned that the Government plans to draw on funds that ...
MOST Australians favour the introduction of an e-health record (EHR) to facilitate exchange of patient information, but only 27% are prepared to pay for it, a new survey by an IT services company has revealed. Launched at the Health Informatics Society of Australia’s recent HIC 2010 conference in Melbourne, the survey by CSC Australia showed a wide gap between public expectations of what an EHR should look like and how it should be funded, and the capabilities of current EHR initiatives. Nearly two-thirds of respondents supported the introduction of an EHR, including 34% strongly in favour, but ...
MEDICAL students are set to weigh into the health reform debate by calling on the Government to create a dedicated funding stream for university clinical training. Under the proposal, to be discussed this week at the annual Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA) conference, universities would receive funding according to how many undergraduates and postgraduates they train. AMSA president Ross Roberts-Thomson told Medical Observer the current under-funding of medical education had forced universities into recruiting high-paying overseas students to cover the costs of training. “Medical education is an expensive degree and to just fund it ...
AS the deadline for the Federal Government’s health reforms looms, Western Australia is remaining firm on its refusal to sign up to the controversial plan. With new health funding arrangements set to commence from 1 July, WA remains the only state not to have signed up to the agreement, which would see the Government assume control of 30% of the states’ GST revenue. The revenue would be placed in a pool of funding used to finance health and hospital services. The deal would provide funding for increased GP training numbers, additional money for aged care as well ...
THE Federal Health Department has given the clearest signal yet that HbA1c levels will used as a benchmark to monitor improvement of patient care and outcomes under its controversial new diabetes funding scheme. The news has led to renewed calls from diabetes and primary care experts for caution in using the measure. There is also ongoing concern that such an indicator would be clinically inappropriate and difficult to implement given the limitations of existing national data. Previous concerns about have also been raised over GPs’ inability to control patient behaviour. Responding to questioning during recent Senate ...
FURTHER evidence has emerged that the Federal Government’s practice nurse funding reforms could backfire, with one practice claiming it is set to lose $120,000 a year and will be forced to reduce bulk-billing as a result of the new scheme. The news comes amid fresh warnings from RDAA CEO Steve Sant that some rural practices will be forced to review and potentially cut back nurse staffing levels under the new practice nurse model. From January 2012 nurse items for Pap smears, wound dressings and immunisations are to be scrapped in favour of block payments to support employing ...
BETTER and more timely communication and data sharing between dietitians and GPs is needed to improve the overall management of diabetes, according to new research. The study, based on questionnaires completed by 356 dietitians assessing Medicare’s existing Chronic Disease Management (CDM) program, also found that the limit on the number of services funded under the scheme was a major barrier to better care. Study author Dr Robyn Cant (PhD), research fellow at the Monash University school of nursing and midwifery, found the limited weekly hours worked by private practising dietitians and a reliance on paper-based communication with ...
ELDERLY patients are being pushed onto emergency departments as residential aged-care facilities (RACF) around the country struggle to source on-site GP care. A recent Catholic Health Australia survey of 91 RACFs found that 57% of residents transferred to emergency departments were because of GP shortages. Eighteen per cent of RACFs said this was done either “fairly frequently” or “regularly”. Fifteen per cent indicated that accessing GPs was an ongoing difficulty that “sometimes compromised patient care”. The findings follow recent news reports of the dire state of many NSW aged-care facilities, which in turn have ...
PLANS for the Mt Isa GP super clinic remain at a standstill, 12 months after the local division charged with developing the project raised concerns that the $2.5 million allocated was insufficient. The Federal Government remains locked in a stalemate with North & West Queensland Primary Health Care, with division chair Dr Viney Joshi saying the funding would need to be doubled for a viable super clinic to be established. Former division chair Dr Harvey Roux voiced concerns over the level of funding for the project last year (MO, 1 May 2009). However, the division signed a ...
THE AMA’s recently-released alternative to the Rudd Government’s unpopular diabetes plan has won over the RACGP but at least one senior academic is unconvinced of its merits. The alternative model comes a month after the Government unveiled its $436 million diabetes scheme, which will introduce voluntary patient enrolment and pay for performance into general practice. Under the AMA model, existing GP Management Plans would be simplified, allowing patients to access five allied health visits and selected home aids, including safety and mobility equipment, without the need for additional Team Care Arrangements. For patients with chronic and ...
THE Rudd Government’s health reform plans have come under renewed fire for failing to end health cost-shifting and the ‘blame game’ between the federal and state governments as experts continue to deconstruct them. Professor Jeff Richardson, foundation director of the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University, labelled the reform package a “poisoned chalice”, and said the funding arrangements would not stop public hospitals attempting to push their patients back on to GPs. Professor Richardson was one of several experts who criticised the reforms in the latest MJA. The proposals agreed at the recent Council of Australian ...
Establishing Local Hospital Networks and regional Primary Health Care Organisations (PHCOs) could create a new frontier for the ‘blame game’ within the health system. Addressing a forum hosted by the Australian National University, RDAA CEO Steve Sant warned the bodies might use each other as scapegoats if the system did not work. “Are we going to see another report in a few years titled Shifting the Blame Game about the networks blaming PHCOs and vice versa because they have not changed the health outcomes of [those] they serve?” he asked. Philip Davies, professor of health systems ...
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has claimed success in winning over state and territories to his sweeping healthcare reforms, despite Western Australia refusing to sign up to the plan. The new deal, thrashed out over the past two days, will see states and territories surrender 30% of their GST revenue to a pool of funding which will be used to finance health and hospital services. Each state’s retained GST will be allocated to their own services. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) deal will usher in a suite of reforms detailed in the National Health and Hospitals Network ...
GPs will need to look closely at their practice contracts to ensure their personal earnings don’t take a hit under the Government’s new diabetes scheme. The $436 million scheme will see practices awarded block-funding for each patient they enrol, plus an average bonus payment of $10,800 per year based partly on their performance in keeping patients healthy. Block funding will consist of annual payments of $1200 per enrolled patient, which will be split $950 for general practices and $250 for allied care. It remains unclear, however, whether the $250 for ...
THE future of a rural NSW GP super clinic due to open next year is in serious doubt with its operator unable to recruit enough GPs to maintain stretched existing services. The Narrandera Medical Centre in the Riverina region last year won a $1 million super clinic contract, which would involve expansion of the practice. However, practice executive director Liz Romeo has written to Health Minister Nicola Roxon warning that without additional GPs to staff the clinic, existing medical services in the town may fold, and a super clinic will not be viable. The warning follows ...
ONE in four GP practices operating without a practice nurse do so because they do not qualify for the associated practice incentive payment (PIP), an AGPN survey has revealed. The National Practice Nurse Workforce Survey found that, of the 2584 practices surveyed, 56.9% employed a practice nurse. Of those that didn’t, 24.4% attributed it to their ineligibility for the practice nurse PIP, while 17.3% cited lack of space. Only rural practices are eligible for the PIP, prompting AGPN chair Dr Emil Djakic to renew calls for the Government to extend the incentive to all practices. He also ...
THE Federal Government has announced plans to become the dominant funder of hospital services across the country, as the first step in its long-awaited health and hospitals reform plan. Under the new funding arrangements outlined today by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the Government plans to take over 60% of the funding for public hospitals with Local Hospital Networks, to be run by local clinical leaders, established to administer services. The Government will also assume responsibility for all GP and primary care services. “By taking full funding and policy responsibility for primary care we can also reduce ...
DIRECTING funding to practice nurses rather than investing in nurse practitioners (NPs) having access to the PBS and MBS would represent better value, according to GP groups. Their comments come as a Senate committee has backed a change to the Federal Government’s legislation that would open Medicare and subsidised prescribing rights to NPs. The amendment would make...
THE Federal Government needs to invest $200 million in new youth mental health services as a matter of priority, rather than wait for its health reform blueprint to be finalised, a mental health expert has claimed. Australian of the Year Professor Patrick McGorry, from the Centre for Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, has called for $100 million to be ploughed into tripling the number of headspace centres, from 30 up to 90. The youth mental health centres currently draw together GP, mental health, drug and alcohol services and employment services in one ...
Vertebroplasty’s five-year interim MBS funding is up for review. Chris Brooker looks at the controversy over the procedure’s efficacy. EXPERT opinion on the merits of vertebroplasty as a treatment for vertebral fracture is as divided as ever, following the 2009 publication of trials questioning its efficacy and safety. While these findings have led to calls for its public funding status to be reconsidered by the Australian Government, proponents remain convinced vertebroplasty is a procedure that brings relief to patients suffering acute pain. Vertebroplasty involves the injection of polymethylmethacrylate (acrylic cement) directly ...
GOVERNMENT funding for mental health initiatives must be shifted from the Better Access program and into the Access to Allied Psychological Services (ATAPS) scheme if the nation’s neediest are to get access to psychological care, according to a leading mental health advocate. Professor Ian Hickie, executive director of the Brain & Mind Research Institute, said when compared to the Better Access scheme, ATAPS provided a better avenue to reach people who were young, on low incomes or in rural areas. “The balance between Better Access and ATAPS is clearly wrong,” he said. “To have 95% ...
AS data continues to emerge from the government-funded point-of-care testing (PoCT) trial, a top government advisor has cast doubt over the likelihood of future MBS funded INR tests in general practice. The latest figures from the PoCT trial, published in Pathology, shows GP INR testing was comparable to lab tests over six months in a sample of 417 patients from 26 general practices. Dr Caroline Laurence (PhD), senior research fellow at the University of Adelaide and member of the trial management group, said the study only reaffirmed safety and accuracy of INR PoCT in the short term. ...
RURAL doctors have urged the Rudd Government to rework its rural infrastructure grant program so GPs can access funding without facing major tax bills. Announced in the 2009-10 Budget, the National Rural and Remote Health Infrastructure Program provides $46 million over four years to improve GP access to funding for essential health infrastructure, equipment and service planning. However, RDAA CEO Steve Sant said many rural practices had been discouraged from applying for the grants – worth up to $500,000 – due to the tax component, which the RDAA has estimated is set at a rate ...
GREATER investment in general practice and primary care, including an expansion of MBS items for practice nurses and MBS funding for point-of-care testing, must be a priority in the next federal Budget, according to the RACGP. In its Budget submission, the college has called for a $530 million investment in general practice and primary care infrastructure as well as increased funding for prevocational and vocational training places. RACGP president Dr Chris Mitchell said that the Government needed to prioritise investment in health, following the disappointment of last year’s Budget. “GP supply has fallen by 2% since ...
The idea of divisions of general practice evolving into divisions of primary health care excites some – and scares others. Kathryn Eccles reports. LIKE a caterpillar emerging as a butterfly. This is how some see the idea of divisions of general practice growing into large regional primary care organisations. Critics argue the real picture is not so beautiful. The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission (NHHRC) set the scene recently with its interim report, which proposes “service coordination and population health planning priorities could be enhanced at local level through the establishment of ...
Funding for a promising rural mental health program is about to dry out. Elizabeth McIntosh reports. IS it time to rethink Dorothea Mackellar’s famous poem about Australia’s sunburnt country and to stop hoping for flooding rains? More and more we’re told the ‘big dry’ is Australia’s new climate, but what does that mean for our farmers and their livelihood? Drought is isolating – a reverse to bushfires and floods, which instead tend to bring communities together – but the effects of drought run deep. So, when the rain doesn’t fall, what support is there ...
A PROGRAM designed to encourage medical students to choose a career in general practice is once again under threat, according to General Practice Registrars Australia (GPRA), with funding not secured beyond the end of the year. The Prevocational General Practice Placements Program became the subject of controversy last year, when its funding was cut by $30 million in the May 2008 Budget. Less than six months later, Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon bowed to pressure and reinvested $50 million into the program, bringing the total number of placements up to 360. However, the funding was not guaranteed ...
A LACK of government support is hindering one NSW division from reaping the full benefits of nurse practitioners. GP Access – formerly the Hunter Urban Division of General Practice – is the first division in Australia to directly employ a nurse practitioner on a trial basis. However, funding means the team member – Jason Maher – is only able to work nine hours a fortnight. The division used funding from its own coffers to employ Mr Maher at its after-hours clinic in Maitland, but division CEO Dr Mark Foster believes this is something the Federal Government should ...
EXPERTS are calling for a national system to scrutinise the merits of every clinical intervention to ensure valuable health dollars are not wasted on ineffective measures. Writing in the MJA , leading academics argued that a process to identify and cut funding from poorly performing programs would improve the health system by making it more efficient and accountable, without the need for additional resources. The paper echoes recent recommendations from the Federal Government’s National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission to install a “national health intervention assessment”. Lead author Dr Adam Elshaug (PhD), Hanson research fellow ...
BARIATRIC surgery funded by the NSW government should be available by the end of this year, the NSW health department says. A spokesperson for the department said a clinic would be operating in the Sydney South West Area Health Service by the end of 2008 and would be staffed by a multidisciplinary team, including endocrinologists, diabetes nurses, psychologists and physiotherapists. The department anticipated clinics would be operating in all eight NSW area health services and at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead by 2012, the spokesperson said. People would be referred to the clinics by a GP ...
CONTINUED government funding of Cancer Council Australia’s SunSmart campaign is essential if Australia is to avoid a blowout in health costs due to non-melanoma skin cancer cases, the council says. The comments follow an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report finding that there had been a 14% increase in GP consultations for this cancer between 1998 and 2007 – with 950,000 visits registered last year. “If this trend continues, we will soon see more than a million GP consultations each year for non-melanoma skin cancer,” said council CEO Professor Ian Olver. He estimated it currently ...
THE current cost-benefit-based approval process for funding immunisations may mean Australians miss out on access to essential vaccines, experts say. At a recent Public Health Association of Australia immunisation conference, medical epidemiologist Dr Stephen Lambert and GPs Dr Peter Eizenberg and Dr Neil Hearnden queried whether the cost-effectiveness model, introduced in 2006, was hampering protection from vaccine-preventable diseases. Dr Lambert, from the Queensland Paediatric Infectious Diseases Laboratory at Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane, said the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) was using “uncertainty” about public health outcomes to shoot down the case for funding vaccines including herpes zoster ...
INCREASED financial support is required for services and devices to provide optimal care to patients with diabetic foot disease, an expert says. Professor Dennis Yue of the Diabetes Centre, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, said pressure-modulating devices, which are commonly used for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers, were expensive, leaving most patients dependent on some form of government financial assistance. However, government programs such as the Program of Appliances for Disabled People in NSW regularly ran out of funding by mid-year, leaving patients waiting six months or more for a device, he said. Professor Yue ...
SMALL and remote Indigenous communities in northern Australia are being statistically ignored, which is affecting their health funding and setting up GPs and government workers for failure. According to James Cook University lecturer Dr Dennis Griffith (PhD), census collection methods and unfair boundary classifications used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) meant small communities were swallowed up by larger centres, masking their true level of despair. For GPs it meant grappling with a lack of professional support, poor infrastructure and a patient base with socioeconomic hardships. “Many of the residents in these communities live in ...