MBS Review calls for crackdown on GP requests for EEGs
But the AMA warns the reforms would be a time-waster, taking GPs away from their patients
31st May 2019
By Lydia Hales
GPs should be required to fill out a mandatory ‘guidance’ form whenever they request an EEG, an MBS Review Taskforce committee has recommended.
The review’s neurosurgery and neurology clinical committee is calling for a clampdown on referrals for EEGs, to make up for “inadequate education” among GPs about their use.
It says MBS data show GPs regularly request EEGs in situations where they are “unlikely to be clinically useful”, pointing to paediatric febrile seizures, syncope and headache as situations where the tests have little or no