15 January New Medicare items coming to support those affected by bushfires January 15, 2020 By Danielle Cranefield Announcement, Services Australia 0 New Medicare items coming to support those affected by bushfires People affected by bushfires can access mental health treatment without a referral or mental health treatment plan from 17 January. You’ll be able to claim these items from 17 January 2020 to 31 December 2021. If your patient needs support before 17 January, use existing mental health treatment items. Your patient will need to meet the current eligibility requirements, including GP referrals. Patients who are eligible may be: individuals or families who have been impacted by the 2019-20 bushfires responders or emergency management employees or volunteers who worked during the 2019-20 bushfires. Patients in rural and remote areas affected by bushfires can also get Medicare rebated counselling and psychological support through video telehealth services. Patients can get up to 10 treatment services each year, between 1 January and 31 December. You can keep seeing them if they’ve used all 10 services, but they won’t get Medicare benefits. The 10 services are available to patients with an existing mental health treatment plan (MHTP) under the Better Access to Mental Health initiative. They don’t affect their claiming limits under that plan. Read More Related Articles PIP payments for those affected by bushfire Amendments to Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) Urgent after-hour items Changes to the arrangements for Medicare funded urgent after-hours services will take effect on the 1st of January 2019 Independent review of health providers’ access to Medicare card numbers This review examined access by Health professionals to Medicare card numbers by using the Health Professional Online Services (HPOS) system or by calling the Department of Human Services. Reforms to Medicare compliance– firmer but fairer? Law reforms introduced from 1 July 2018 have given Medicare stronger debt recovery powers. The legislation also provides for fairer approaches to compliance, by apportioning responsibility for overpayments between both doctors and their employers or contractors, including public hospitals. Minister for Health, Greg Hunt said the legislation aims to deal with the “very, very small number of outliers” who don’t comply, at the same time acknowledging “the outstanding degree of integrity” among the medical workforce when the Act was being reviewed by Parliament. Department of Health: Almost 3.5 million P2 masks provided for bushfires The Australian Government is providing an additional 576,000 P2 masks to South Australia, Tasmania and Australian Defence Force personnel to support bushfire-affected communities. COVID-19 Telehealth items Guide Comments are closed.