Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Bernardi, for the question. Fortunately, largely our doctors do the right thing. Of course, for those who don't do the right thing and who overcharge, we seek to, as you've quite rightly said in your question, recover excess funds that have been taken.

Last year we introduced to the parliament the Health Legislation Amendment (Improved Medicare Compliance and Other Measures) Bill 2018 to implement measures announced in the 2017 budget and to support the integrity of Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The bill delivered savings of $103 million over four years, which aligns with the sorts of numbers that you're quoting in your question. Those numbers are based on increased and earlier debt collection figures. The measures in the bill support the integrity of Medicare through improvements to the recovery of arrangements for Medicare debts owed to the Commonwealth.

These improvements will allow compulsory offsetting of future MBS, Medicare Benefits Schedule, payments made to providers on behalf of bulk-billing patients; introduce garnishee arrangements for providers who do not bulk-bill; make administrative arrangements more consistent across the three acts; and deal with businesses' billing approaches that impact on claiming by providers.