Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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HEALTH INSURANCE REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT) 1997 NO. 319

EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

STATUTORY RULES 1997 No. 319

Issued by the authority of the Minister for Health and Family Services

Health Insurance Regulations (Amendment)

The Health Insurance Act 1973 ('the Act") provides in pan for the recognition of certain medical practitioners who are in approved placements.

Section 133 of the Act provides that the Governor-General may make Regulations for the purposes of the Act.

The Health Insurance Amendment Act (No 2) 1996 introduced minimum, proficiency, requirements that medical practitioners must meet before the services they provide attract Medicare benefits.

New doctors are not recognised as medical practitioners for the purposes of Medicare unless they fall into one of a number of classes e.g. a specialist or a general practitioner. These classes are listed, it! section 19AA of the Act. One of the, classes listed includes doctors working in an approved placement for a specific purpose such as a participant in: a training program leading, to a specialist qualification. Before a doctor can be, recognised in, this. category, the Health Insurance Commission must have written notification from an approved body e.g. the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), that the person is a participant in an approved program e.g. the RACGP Training Program.

The Rural Locum Relief Program. is an approved program which allows doctors who had completed their intern year, or period of supervised training, after 1 November 1996 to access Medicare benefits whilst undertaking approved rural, locum placements.

Subsection 3GA (5) of the Act relevantly provides that a body specified in Regulations may inform the Health Insurance Commission that a person is enrolled in a course or program specified in the Regulations.

Health Insurance Regulation 6E specifies that bodies, programs grid qualifications approved for the purposes of paragraph 30A (5) (a) of the Act are to be set out in Schedules to the Regulations.

Schedule 1A - Part 2 of the Regulations lists the specified programs and the bodies approving those programs for the purposes of section 3GA of the Act. The amendment increases the number of approved bodies capable of administering the Rural Locum Relief Program.

The amendment adds to the list in Schedule 1A - Part 2 organisations in each state and the Northern Territory a& approved bodies which have made an undertaking to administer the Rural Locum Relief Program for the purposes of section 3GA of the Act.

Previously, the Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services and the Queensland Department of Health were the only bodie's specified in the Regulations.

This increase in the number of bodies, (one in each state and two in the Northern Territory), can enable the Program to be expedited more efficiently and in conjunction with other rural/remote locum arrangements already in place. In addition, using locally based organisations streamlines supervision and backup requirement for the locum placements. The Rural Division Coordinating Units, NT Divisions of General, Practice and the Western Australian Centre for Remote and Rural Medicine have been integrally involved in the rural locum support arrangements for the General Practice Rural Incentives Program.

The Regulations commenced on Gazettal.