Revealed: the millions the MBS Review Taskforce is saving the government

The MBS Review Taskforce has scored the Federal Government a $600 million savings bonanza despite a pledge that its proposals would be about reinvestment rather than budget cuts.

Launched in 2015, the taskforce has assembled hundreds of clinicians to trawl through 5800 MBS items in an attempt to bring the schedule up-to-date with developments in modern medicine.

But the recommendations so far implemented by ministers will reduce MBS funding by some $670 million over the next four years, according to figures released by the Department of Health this week.

The biggest saver has been the revamp of urgent after-hours service items, which will see spending cut by $264 million by 2021/22.

Reforms to diagnostic and testing services will save a further $180 million over the same period.

Then comes the recommendation from the taskforce to crack down on doctors making inappropriate claims. The government says this will save $123 million.

The government says it will reform the MBS to improve access to dialysis in very remote areas – a pledge that will require extra investment of some $35 million.

However, the biggest investment being made by the government is the funding of the task force itself, which it says will cost $45 million by 2020/21.

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Three years ago, then-AMA president Professor Brian Owler warned that the review would lose the support of the profession if it was primarily about reducing investment in health.

“If we get the sense that this is a cost-cutting exercise, then AMA support and, I suspect, the support of the whole medical profession, will be jeopardised,” he said in a letter to the medical colleges.

But then Heath Minister Sussan Ley always strenuously denied that it was a cost-cutting exercise.

“Efficiencies gained from this process will be divided between reinvesting in new items and keeping Medicare sustainable, which is really, really important,” she claimed at the time. 

“I always thought it interesting that people and Labor suggest we’re attacking Medicare – in fact we’re not.”

In a presentation to doctors’ leaders in 2015, the head of the review, Professor Bruce Robinson, said the review had been given “no savings target” but that there would be scope for reinvestment.

One issue is that the task force has attached few dollar figures to any of its recommendations, instead leaving the government to decide funding should it take up the suggestions.

One notable exception was its call for GP rebates for post-bronchodilator spirometry tests to increase to $40. This was accepted and will be introduced next month.

The review has yet to publish its recommendations on the main GP items – although Australian Doctor has been told they will include banning level B items for consults lasting less than six minutes and a proposal for a level E items for consults lasting more than an hour.