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 clinical value.

Other situations where EEGs are “likely to represent low-value care” include non-specific fatigue, mood disturbance and tics and “excessive repeat testing on the same patient, either over the course of several days or over a longer period”.