Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill and I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

The Labor Party has no prouder legacy than our contribution to universal health coverage in Australia. Most importantly through Labor's establishment of the two key pillars in the Medicare and the PBS. The Albanese Government is committed to protecting and strengthening our world-class Medicare system.

Australia's universal health care system, Medicare, provides free or subsidised access for all Australians to most health care services. This Bill strengthens Medicare compliance powers and will assist with the investigation and recovery of debts associated with inappropriate Medicare billing.

Medicare, including the Medicare Benefits Schedule, or MBS, and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, or PBS, continue to provide Australians with access to free hospital care, and more affordable health care and medicines, and the Child Dental Benefits Scheme, or CDBS, provides access to dental services for children.

Australian Government expenditure on the MBS, PBS and CDBS is projected to be nearly $44 billion in 2021-22.

As stewards of this investment in the health of Australians, the Government is committed to protecting the integrity and financial viability of Medicare, ensuring that Australians may continue to have access to our world-class health system.

While the vast majority of health care providers do the right thing when claiming Medicare benefits, there is unfortunately a small number that do not. In most cases, these are a result of mistakes and administrative errors, but in some cases, it is as a result of incorrect or inappropriate claiming and, at worst, fraud.

The Department of Health and Aged Care supports practitioners, healthcare organisations and peak bodies to correctly claim health payments with a clear focus on education, engagement and consultation. However, ensuring rigorous, effective health practitioner compliance and identifying health care practitioners that are not doing the right thing are vital to protecting the integrity of Medicare.

Historically, compliance activities have concentrated on the behaviour of individual practitioners, on the principle that practitioners are ultimately responsible for what is billed under their Medicare provider numbers. While this principle remains critical, the Government needs to adapt its compliance arrangements to an environment where corporations are employing or otherwise engaging practitioners, and are increasingly involved in, and influencing the provision of, health care services.

The primary intent of the Bill is to both strengthen the compliance powers of the Professional Services Review, or the PSR, and to add a degree of flexibility to the PSR's ability to address the inappropriate practice of corporations.

The Bill is in four parts: Part One amends the PSR scheme; Part Two amends certain debt-recovery decisions; Part Three amends miscellaneous debt recovery arrangements; and Part Four amends the giving of false or misleading information.

The PSR addresses the behaviour of practitioners that may have engaged in inappropriate practice through review by the Director or by Committees comprised of professional peers of the person under review. As an alternative to lengthy, resource-intensive reviews by a Committee, the Director may enter into written agreements with practitioners who are prepared to acknowledge their inappropriate practice and agree to specified actions.

The PSR may also review the practice of corporations that have knowingly, recklessly or negligently caused or permitted their practitioners to engage in inappropriate practice. Currently, such conduct by a body corporate may be reviewed only by a Committee. The Bill amends section 92 of the Health Insurance Act 1973, which authorises the making of agreements with the Director, to ensure all persons under review have the opportunity to negotiate an agreement.

There can be significant consequences for an individual or body corporate referred to a Committee, including publication of findings. However, agreements made under section 92 are confidential and this encourages co-operation.

In essence, the Bill extends provisions for written agreements, currently applicable only to individual practitioners, to include:

(a) a practitioner who personally renders or initiates services;

(b) an individual (who may be a practitioner) who employs or otherwise engages practitioners;

(c) an officer (who may be a practitioner) of a body corporate which employs or otherwise engages practitioners; or

(d) a body corporate which employs or otherwise engages practitioners.

The new provisions allow the Director to come to an agreement with a person under review, including a body corporate or non-practitioner, who acknowledges inappropriate practice and agrees to specified actions.

The specified actions for bodies corporate may include:

To be clear, a corporation's acknowledgment of inappropriate practice has no bearing on the practitioners it employs or otherwise engages. Individual practitioners will not be named in agreements with corporations or other persons who employ or otherwise engage practitioners (and such agreements are themselves confidential).

In entering into an agreement with the Director, a body corporate or other person who employs or otherwise engages practitioners would acknowledge that they engaged in inappropriate practice by knowingly, recklessly or negligently causing or permitting one or more of its practitioners to engage in inappropriate practice. That acknowledgement is not binding on any individual practitioner nor does it result in any findings being made in relation to individual practitioners.

If an individual practitioner is the subject of a separate referral, the practitioner would have the option to seek an agreement with the Director or to proceed to review by a Committee. The acknowledgement by the person who employed or otherwise engaged the practitioner would not be put before the Committee and a finding of inappropriate practice could be made only following an examination of an appropriate sample of clinical records and evidence from the practitioner or any other witnesses.

As a consequence of the new provisions relating to corporations, and to maintain its peer review function, the Bill adjusts the composition of the Determining Authority so that it may include additional members of the same profession as the relevant practitioners engaged or employed by the person under review.

The Government's commitment to improved compliance is embodied in new sanctions against behaviour that stymies the Government's ability to review inappropriate practice and to recover Commonwealth debts created by agreements between persons under review and the Director.

The Bill creates an exception to the general rule that agreements made under section 92 are confidential by giving the Director the discretion to publish details of an agreement, where the person under review has not fulfilled their obligations. The person under review will have an opportunity to make submissions about their compliance or otherwise. To further protect the integrity of the scheme against persons, particularly corporations, reneging on agreed terms, the Government will have the ability to garnishee bank accounts, bringing repayments under section 92 agreements in line with other debt recovery provisions currently permitted under the Health Insurance Act 1973. Garnishee notices will only be issued if persons under review do not promptly engage with the Department on repayment or breach an agreement to pay the debt by instalments.

Access to information is essential for the PSR to carry out reviews. The Bill introduces offences for persons under review that fail to appear at Committee hearings or fail to give evidence or answer questions where required by Committees. Maximum penalties for non-compliance will be fines of 150 penalty units, or $33,300 at current rates, for bodies corporate and 30 penalty units, or $6,660 at current rates, for non-practitioner individuals.

The Bill also provides for an offence where a person, other than a person under review who is a practitioner, fails to respond to a notice to provide documents to the Director or to a Committee with fines of up to 30 penalty units. The PSR will also be able to take court action seeking a civil penalty of up to 30 penalty units (currently $6,660) for each day that a body corporate contravenes the Health Insurance Act 1973 by failing to respond to a notice to provide documents. Further, the Director will be able to apply for court orders for a body corporate to comply with notices.

Following recent observations of the Federal Court regarding jurisdictional fact, the Bill also clarifies that a referral to the PSR may be made where it appears that there is the possibility that a person may have engaged in inappropriate practice in the provision of services. Under the PSR scheme, it is ultimately a matter for the PSR to investigate whether a person has provided services, and whether the conduct of the person under review in relation to the rendering or initiation of those services amounts to inappropriate practice.

The Bill also addresses inconsistencies arising from the introduction of legislation in 2018 to improve debt recovery powers under the Health Insurance Act 1973, the National Health Act 1953 and the Dental Benefits Act 2008. The Bill introduces amendments clarifying:

Finally, the Bill amends the National Health Act 1953 and the Dental Benefits Act 2008 to mirror recent changes to the Health Insurance Act 1973. The December 2020 amendments to the Health Insurance Act 1973 clarified that the Commonwealth may recover incorrect payments made as a result of the giving of false or misleading information.

Maintaining universal access to health care through Medicare is a priority for this Government. The Bill protects the integrity of Medicare for all Australians.

Ordered that further consideration of the second reading of this bill be adjourned to the first sitting day of the next period of sittings, in accordance with standing order 111.