Health officials are finally allowing GPs who need patient interpreters to claim longer MBS consults, but those who specialise in refugee health say the rebates available are still inadequate compensation for the complexity of the work.  

Dr Lester Mascarenhas says he has repeatedly asked Medicare about using the longer consult items to cover the additional time of sourcing an interpreter and then running the consult but has been knocked back. 

Then in May, the Department of Health finally issued guidelines saying it was “reasonable to claim a longer attendance item than might otherwise be expected” for consults requiring an interpreter.  

“It’s a win after a very long battle,” said Dr Mascarenhas, a GP in Melbourne and medical director of the Utopia Refugee and Asylum Seeker Health Clinic, which uses interpreters for 90% of its patients.