Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister confirm that Sound Radiology in Adelaide is situated within five kilometres of nine other MRI machines with existing MRI Medicare licences?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very happy to check the details and return on that. But let me run through the criteria for this process, because I understand that the ALP ran a parallel process but there was no identification of the grounds, there was no identification of the basis for applications and there was no identification of a formal process.

In particular, I can indicate that, on 4 February 2019, the government announced further investment in the MRI program, bringing the total of MRI units to receive Medicare eligibility to over 50. In particular, on 23 September 2018, the government announced an invitation to apply for an ITA process, commencing on 24 September 2018, to allocate Medicare eligibility to up to 20 additional MRI units comprising a mix of fully eligible units and upgrades of existing partial units in metropolitan and regional areas. The closing time for lodging applications was 2 September 2018.

In terms of the streams to which applications were available, they included the upgrade of partially eligible MRI equipment to full Medicare eligibility, with a current deed within the department for partial Medicare eligibility for the MRI unit to which the application relates. Stream 2 is full Medicare eligibility for MRI equipment applicants who have an operational MRI unit at the practice or will have an operational MRI unit at the location by 31 December 2020. The grounds and conditions for application assessment are set out in those terms, and that's the process that's been followed.