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AAP
A Senate committee says the government should restore Medicare funding for a specialised treatment until completion of a trial to assess whether it actually works.
Liberal Senator Scott Ryan said changes to the Medicare benefits schedule came into effect this year removing funding for hyperbaric oxygen treatment of non-diabetic ulcers.
Senator Ryan said this might sound obscure and it only affected a few hundred people each year at a cost of about $4 million.
“If you are one of the people who suffer from non-diabetic ulceration, this treatment has been shown to be of particular benefit,” he said.
Senator Ryan said no-one disputed the need to achieve value for money for health care funding and to properly assess new procedures.
“But in this case, the process has broken down,” he said.
Hyperbaric treatment involves administration of pure oxygen in a pressure chamber to speed healing of some conditions.
Medicare has funded it as a treatment for a range of conditions since 1984.
Its use in treatment of non-diabetic ulcers is more recent with limited information as to its efficacy.
Senator Ryan said some people believed it worked very well and a proper trial was now under way.
Medicare funding should be restored until that trial was completed and assessed by the Medical Services Advisory Committee.
A dissenting report by Labor committee members backed the decision to remove the Medicare funding.
Labor Senator Helen Polley said Medicare had funded this treatment for over a decade and on three occasions proponents had failed to meet criteria for ongoing funding.
“There is currently a trial being undertaken and when that trial has been completed the applicants can again seek funding,” she said.