How the new health budget cuts will affect you
In next week’s budget, cuts will see patients find it harder to get an MRI scan of their knee and those with sleep problems will find it harder to gain access to sleep studies.
Further cuts will see tightened access to spinal fusion and skin lesion treatments and testing for allergies will be streamlined, reported the Daily Telegraph.
There are also plans for the Medicare levy for GP visits to rise, there will be strategies to get more doctors in the bush and new Medicare rebates for cancer scans will be implemented.
The Medicare rebate for GP visits has been frozen for four years and the from July 1, the budget will fund a rise of around 55 cents per visit from $37.05 to $37.60.
Medicare rebates for specialist appointments and other medical services will remain frozen until 2020.
The budget will also contain a Medicare rebate of around $400 for prostate cancer scans, helping around 20,000 men annually.
There will also be a new $114 Medicare rebate for three dimensional tomosynthesis of breast tumours, which will help 240,000 women when their doctors order the test to diagnose and treat breast cancer.
However, other Medicare services will be tightened due to the Government’s Medicare Review to save money.
The Consumer’s Health Forum has voiced concerns about the cuts that will stop GPs ordering knee MRIs for over 55-year-olds.
More than 60,000 of those scans are ordered each year and now, patients will have to pay $200-$300 to see a specialist to access the test.
“While there may be some justification for discouraging overuse of this expensive procedure, it will put many older people to the additional expense of having to consult a specialist in order to get a referral,” the Consumer’s Health Forum said.