On 18 September 2020, the Prime Minister, the Hon. Scott Morrison MP, and the Minister for Health, the Hon. Greg Hunt MP, announced:$2 billion to extend critical health services across Australia.
A range of COVID-19 health measures are being extended for a further six months, to 31 March 2021. This extension will include Medicare-subsidised telehealth and pathology services, GP-led respiratory clinics, home medicines delivery, public and private hospital services. Patients will continue to have access to Medicare-subsidised telehealth for general practitioner, nursing, midwifery, allied health and allied mental health services, where and when they need them. Telehealth is also being extended for essential specialist services, such as consultant physician, geriatrician, and neurosurgery services.
The telehealth and phone consultation services provided by GPs and other doctors in general practice will be amended to remove the requirement to bulk-bill attendances for certain patients. When the amendment takes effect on 1 October 2020, these doctors will be able to choose to bulk-bill or patient bill any temporary COVID-19 telehealth and phone attendance service. Bulk billing will continue to be available and regular billing practices will apply to all of these services.
It is still a legislative requirement that these services, provided by GPs and other doctors in general practice, must be performed by the patient’s usual medical practitioner (please see Note AN.1.1 for the definition of ‘patient’s usual medical practitioner’ as some exemptions do apply).
The temporary doubling of the schedule fees for the bulk-billing incentive items will cease and schedule fees will return to the normal rate.
Fact sheets with further information can be found at the MBS temporary telehealth services page.
The SARS-COV-2 pathology testing item for essential workers will be expanded from 22 September 2020 to include people who travel interstate as a rail crew member.
Minor updates will be made to improve terminology within the item descriptors. These changes do not change policy for providing MBS sleep studies.
The October 2020 MBS files are available on the October 2020 downloads page.
| Amended Items from 1 October 2020 | 12203, 12204, 12205, 12207, 12208, 12210, 12213, 12215, 12217, 12250, 12254, 12258, 12261, 12265, 12268, 12272, 91790, 91795, 91797, 91799, 91800, 91801, 91802, 91792, 91803, 91804, 91805, 91794, 91806, 91807, 91808, 91809, 91810, 91811, 91812, 91813, 91814, 91815, 91816, 91817, 91818, 91819, 91820, 91821, 91842, 91843, 91844, 91845, 92004, 92011, 92016, 92023, 92024, 92025, 92026, 92027, 92028, 92055, 92056, 92057, 92058, 92059, 92068, 92069, 92070, 92071, 92072, 92099, 92100, 92101, 92102, 92103, 92112, 92113, 92114, 92115, 92116, 92117, 92118, 92119, 92120, 92121, 92122, 92123, 92124, 92125, 92126, 92127, 92128, 92129, 92130, 92131, 92132, 92133, 92134, 92135, 92136, 92137, 92138, 92139, 92142, 92145, 92146, 92147, 92148, 92149, 92150, 92151, 92152, 92153, 92154, 92155, 92156, 92157, 92158, 92159, 92160, 92161, 92170, 92171, 92176, 92177, 92182, 92184, 92186, 92188, 92194, 92196, 92198, 92200, 92210, 92211, 92216, 92217 |
| Amended item from 22 September 2020 | 69501 |
| Fee Adjustments from 1 October | 10990, 10991, 10992, 64990, 64991, 74990, 74991 |
| Ceasing Items | 10981, 10982 |
The purpose of this instrument is to extend the availability of the items for six months until 31 March 2021.This instrument also amends the telephone and phone consultation services provided GPs and other doctors in general practice to remove the requirement to bulk-bill certain patients. This instrument also amends the SARS-COV-2 pathology testing item for essential workers to expand it to include people who travel interstate as a rail crew member.
Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Bulk-billing Incentive (No. 2)) Regulations 2020The purpose of the instrument is to remove the temporary increase that was applied to the schedule fees for the bulk-billing incentive items and return the schedule fees to their normal rate from 1 October 2020. This includes the application of indexation of 1.5 per cent that was applied to most MBS items on 1 July 2020.