More than 160 practices will lose access to Medicare for diagnostic imaging unless they begin upgrading their equipment, with the Federal Government closing a loophole that allows rural services to use older machines. 

A report by the MBS Review Taskforce warned back in 2018 warned that patients could be experiencing excessive doses of radiation and inaccurate results from receiving scans on machines which in some cases dated back to the last century.

Historically, Medicare offered different rebates based on the age of the equipment used by doctors, with scans on older machines attracting rebates half the value of those for new devices. 

The only exception applied to practices in rural and remote areas, which were allowed to claim the higher rebate items if they were deemed to operate on a “rare and sporadic basis” or provided “crucial patient access” to imaging services.