Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Hansard source

My first question is to the minister, and he has just walked in, so I am not sure if the member for Sturt wants to answer these questions. He might have a better go this time. My questions are for the Minister for Veterans' Affairs about the wider government freeze on allied health providers as part of the Medicare freeze. There has been some concerning evidence that the Medicare freeze has flowed on to the Repatriation Medical Fee Schedule and that this is increasing the gap between what is paid by DVA and what a private or a public patient that is willing to pay the gap has to pay.

There has been evidence tabled by the Australian Medical Association, which has released findings of a survey which has highlighted that the indexation freeze is affecting not only psychological services but also specialist services including surgery, medicine, psychiatry and ophthalmology, to name a few. What is happening is that some specialists are refusing service to veterans and other specialists are treating them not under their DVA status but as public and private patients.

This has also been indicated to the Senate inquiry into suicide research and prevention. Evidence tendered by both the Australian Psychological Society and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists is that the freeze, which has left the DVA rebate effectively the same for many years now, since 2014, is acting now as a disincentive for experienced, skilled clinicians to see veterans.

Considering that there is now evidence to show that this issue is affecting access for veterans to health care, my questions to the minister are: is he collecting any evidence? Is his department recording any complaints that are made around not getting service? Is there any empirical work being done about the refusal of service? Is anyone recording whether specialists or other healthcare professionals are not accepting DVA clients, preferring to treat them as public or private patients? Has he written or communicated with the Minister for Health about the impact of the freeze? Has he advocated for this freeze to be lifted earlier than in three years time? Has he spoken with the AMA or any of the other peak bodies about what this freeze means for veterans?

Is there any plan for any adjustments and to decouple the DVA repatriation medical fee schedule from the Medicare rebate? And will there be any automatic payments to cover what is becoming an increasing gap that is not able to be charged to veterans? Is this going to be followed into the future? And what will the minister be doing to ensure that veterans actually get what they are entitled to?

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