In his second Federal Budget since coming into power, Health Minister Mr Mark Butler has made Medicare reform his number one priority in 2023/24. With optometry being one of the top bulkbilling professions, the sector’s peak body says it’s vital eye health has a seat at the table especially when it comes to embedding multidisciplinary team-based care.
On 9 May, the Federal Government revealed how it would spend taxpayer money over the next four years, with Medicare the centrepiece of the $101 billion health budget “after nine long years of cuts and neglect”. This comprises critical funding for urgent needs, and reforms with a longer term view.
Among those revealed in the budget, policymakers committed $445 million to increase incentives for GPs to employ various health professionals to provide team-based primary care. Smaller practices will also be able to complement their teams with the services of allied health professionals that have been commissioned by Primary Health Networks ($79.4m).
There will also be investment in MyMedicare, a new voluntary scheme to create a stronger relationship between patients and their primary care teams. For patients it allows better continuity of care and easier access to telehealth consultations. For health professionals, it will provide more comprehensive information about regular patients, while giving patients and their care team access to additional funding packages, tailored to their health needs.
Further, the government will invest $951 million to upgrade My Health Record, making it easier for patients and providers to share information more securely and efficiently.
Optometry Australia (OA) interim CEO Ms Skye Cappuccio said these reforms were not possible without optometrists.
“Fifty-five per cent of Australians have one or more chronic eye condition with 93% of people aged 65 and over having long term vision disorders. These are the same patients the government’s Medicare reforms are looking to assist through My Medicare and multidisciplinary team-based care. Often, their eye conditions are linked directly to their other chronic health conditions as well as to their age,” she said.
“Eye health is beset by the same issues identified by the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce that have led to the reforms in the budget: lack of integrated care; freezing (actually cutting) of Medicare rebates; specialist workforce shortages and maldistribution; over reliance on overstretched public hospitals; poor information systems; and eye health professionals prevented from practising to their full scope.”
Cappuccio said as with the broader health system, disadvantaged groups suffer most. Fifty-nine per cent of women report long term vision issues compared with 51% of men. People in low socio-economic communities without private health insurance wait months, if not years, for public hospital appointments. Indigenous Australians wait more than 50% longer for cataract surgery than non-Indigenous Australians.
“This long-awaited and very welcome Medicare reform package provides the opportunity to rectify these problems, but only if it is recognised that patients’ eye health is an integral part of their overall health, and that eyecare must be part of multidisciplinary team-based care,” she said.
“It is a misnomer to be reforming Medicare and not include optometrists who are responsible for 10 million Medicare-funded patient consults annually, far more than any other allied health profession.
Cappuccio was hopeful that optometry would be a key part of the Medicare reforms, particularly as optometrists in communities around Australia had been demonstrating how their participation in collaborative eyecare can improve patient outcomes, reduce hospital wait times and reduce overall health system costs.
“The direction of the government’s Medicare reforms is right but we must now take the necessary steps to better integrate eye health into whole-patient approaches to care,” Cappuccio said.
These steps include:
- Using the National Scope of Practice Review to remove regulatory and funding barriers that prevent optometrists from practising at full scope.
- Including optometrists in multidisciplinary team-based care.
- Ensuring that proven collaborative eyecare solutions which enhance patient access and reduce public hospital wait times are developed at scale in the next National Health Reform Agreements.
- Integrating eye health information sharing into the new data-rich My Health record system.
“With these sensible enhancements, the Medicare reforms can make a once-in-a-generation change in eye health that will benefit millions of Australians,” Cappuccio said.
Other health highlights
- Budget breakdown: Building a stronger Medicare ($5.7b), health prevention and protection ($1.1b), tackling smoking and vaping ($737.0m), mental health and suicide prevention ($586.9m), and First Nations health ($818.5m).
- $3.5 billion in bulk billing incentives. Tripling these incentives to address the sharp decline in bulk billing, the largest increase in the 40-year history of Medicare. Incentives will cover many common GP consultations, including telehealth and videoconference.
- Making common medicines cheaper. Australians will be able to buy two months’ worth of medicine for the price of a single (one month) prescription for more than 300 common PBS medicines. This will halve patients’ visits to the GP and pharmacist – saving patients an estimated $1.6 billion and freeing up millions of GP appointments.
- $47.8 million for wound care. Patients with diabetes and chronic wounds, in particular, will benefit from additional funding to improve access to more affordable, high-quality wound care.
- $358.5 million for Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, with more clinics in more places. This will free up overstretched GPs, take pressure off hospitals and improve access to affordable care. Eight new Medicare Urgent Care Clinics will be fully resourced and operating this year, open for longer hours and with no out-of-pocket cost for patients. This takes the total number of clinics around the country to 58.
More reading
Federal Budget 2022/23 health highlights
Optometry Australia welcomes Strengthening Medicare announcement
Vision 2020 Australia’s 2023-24 Federal Budget wish list
