Health Insurance Amendment (Medical
Specialists) Bill 2005
Date Introduced:
23 June 2005
House: House of Representatives
Portfolio: Health and Ageing
Commencement:
Sections 1 to 3 will take
effect on Royal Assent. Schedule 1 will take effect on the 28th day
after Royal Assent.
This Bill
proposes to amend the Health Insurance Act 1973 to
streamline procedures under which certain medical specialists and
consultant physicians are recognised as eligible to provide
services that attract a Medicare rebate.
Medical practitioners can apply to the Health
Insurance Commission (HIC) for recognition as a specialist or
consultant physician under the Health Insurance Act 1973
(the Act) for the purpose of attracting Medicare
benefits.(1) Currently there are three pathways for such
applications. The pathway chosen will depend upon the particular
circumstances of each applicant.
Applicants may seek automatic
recognition if they are domiciled in Australia, a Fellow
of a specialist medical college and have a relevant qualification
from a specialist medical college. Recognition is provided by the
Managing Director of HIC following advice from a relevant
specialist medical college that the applicant has met these
criteria (Section 3D).
Applicants who have been trained in Australia but do not meet
the above criteria are eligible for an alternative method
of recognition through the Specialist Recognition Advisory
Committees (SRACs) process. This is the only pathway for
recognition of consultant physicians (a subgroup of specialists
that includes physicians, rehabilitation specialists and
psychiatrists). SRACs for each state and territory are established
under the Act and meet every two months. Committee members are
appointed by the Minister for Health and Ageing (Section 3DB).
Finally, medical practitioners not domiciled in Australia at the
time of application may seek recognition through a
determination of the Minister (Section 3E).
This Bill will affect the second of the above pathways the SRACs
process. The amendments proposed in the Bill will have the effect
of disbanding the SRACs. The Government proposes to do this because
it regards these Committees as having effectively been made
redundant. Historically, the SRACs have relied on the assessment
advice of specialist medical colleges and Medical Registration
Boards in making decisions on applications for specialist
recognition. Now, however, they have come to use the same
assessment processes as those used by specialist medical colleges
and Medical Registration Boards.
As a result, the SRACs are now regarded by the Government as
adding a redundant administrative layer to the processing of
applications. The time between registration of specialists and when
they provide services under Medicare is thus unnecessarily
extended.
Following passage of the Bill it is intended
that the decision-making powers of the SRACs will pass to the
Delegate of the Minister for Health and Ageing in HIC. This has the
potential to streamline application processes for specialist
recognition by avoiding the necessity to meet the cut-off dates for
applications to the SRACs and wait for up to two months for SRACs
meetings.
The amendments proposed in the Bill include
the recognition of consultant physicians domiciled in Australia in
the second (alternative) pathway following disbanding of the SRACs.
This is necessary because, as mentioned above, the SRACs pathway
had been the only means by which medical practitioners domiciled in
Australia could be recognised as consultant physicians for the
purposes of Medicare disbanding the SRACs would have left
consultant physicians without any vehicle for applying for
recognition.
Schedule 1 Amendment of the Health
Insurance Act 1973
The Bill proposes to make the following
changes to the Health Insurance Act 1973: