Big Path has been playing Chicken Little, telling the public the government is cutting almost $400m from services. The health minister begs to differ.
Federal health minister Mark Butler has slammed the big pathology companies for running a “dishonest [public] campaign” against reforms to pathology services.
In the 2024-25 budget, the government introduced three measures that will come into effect on 1 July.
The first reintroduces annual indexation for selected pathology services – haematology, immunology, tissue pathology, cytology, and infertility and pregnancy.
Those service groups have not been indexed in almost 25 years, and the measure was designed to support continued high bulk-billing rates. The exceptions to the lifting of the freeze – chemical, microbiology, and genetics services – have not been returned to indexation because they “continue to benefit from automation and economies of scale”.
The second measure was to action recommendations from the MBS Review Taskforce’s Diagnostic Medicine Clinical Committee:
- Amend vitamin B12 test items (66838 and 66839) to clarify the appropriate vitamin B12 testing pathway. This is intended to reduce unnecessary duplicative testing for patients that are not vitamin B12 deficient;
- Amend urine examination item (69333) to clarify appropriate asymptomatic patient testing to those with clinical need. This is intended to reduce unnecessary testing of patients with no risks, signs or symptoms of urinary tract infection.
Big pathology groups, under the collective banner of “Australian Pathology” ran a campaign called “Keep Pathology Bulk-Billed” claiming that the government was cutting $356 million from pathology services, by halving the Medicare rebate for some tests including vitamin B12 and urine tests. Many pathology services ran posters and stickers in their public waiting rooms.
Questioned about this on 5AA radio yesterday, Mr Butler was scathing.
“This is a pretty dishonest campaign being run by the very big, big, big pathology companies,” he said.
“We implemented some changes that were the product of expert clinical advice … about how the Medicare schedule works, and they provided some advice to try and cut down what they describe as unnecessary tests.
Related
“Now, there’s been a pretty misleading campaign run by the big pathology companies saying people who have a clinical need for this type of testing are not going to get it through Medicare.
“They will. There’s no question about that, and what the big pathology companies also fail to put into their poster is that for the first time in many years, I’ve provided indexation, or rebate increases for pathology tests, which they’ve been complaining about for some time.
“It has been more than 20 years since the Medicare rebates had been increased for pathology. I increased that. They don’t put that in their poster, of course.
“And they try to suggest that these changes are political changes when in actual fact what they are is implementing the best advice we have from doctors about how to use the Medicare system.”
The third measure coming into effect on 1 July repeals fees imposed on the pathology sector under the Health Insurance (Pathology) (Fees) Act 1991 for approved pathology authority, approved pathology practitioner, and accredited pathology laboratory applications.
This will reduce administrative burden and save the sector money.