Page 1123 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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As well as including the basic Medicare principles and commitments in the ACT legislation, it has always been the Government's intention to include the explanatory notes as set out in the Commonwealth Medicare Agreements Act 1992. These explanatory notes, which are the focus of this amendment, detail the ACT's obligation to provide a high standard of hospital services as well as information about those services in a manner that ensures that both the services and the information are available equally to all eligible persons. Therefore, the Bill amends the Health Act to include as footnotes the explanatory notes contained in the Commonwealth Medicare Agreements Act 1992. With the enactment of this amendment, the ACT legislation now fully meets the requirements of the Medicare agreement. In addition, the Bill provides a legislative basis in the ACT for the release of specific confidential information, under certain circumstances, with the consent of the Minister for Health.
A working party of the Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council, the advisory body to the Australian Health Ministers Conference, is considering strategies to prevent fraud in Medicare in all States and Territories. Our participation in this process is dependent upon our amendment of the Health Act. The amendment is also relevant to the issues identified by the Auditor-General in report No. 5 of August 1993 in relation to visiting medical officers, in which he commented that there may be some elements of irregularity in certain payments to doctors. The Auditor-General noted that there were no arrangements for the exchange of information between the Department of Health and the Commonwealth and, in particular, for claims between the Health Insurance Commission and the ACT public hospital system.
The Auditor-General also reported that information in public hospital records relating, for example, to payments to visiting medical officers for services provided to patients cannot currently be released without legal authority or the consent of the patient. The Auditor-General subsequently recommended that the Government make a regulation under the Health Act to permit the release of relevant information with the consent of the Minister for Health. The proposed section 21 in the Health (Amendment) Bill now before the Assembly provides for the Minister for Health to consent to the release of information relating to the provision of health services by a health service provider at a health facility to assist with the prevention or detection of fraud.
With the consent of the Minister, a person responsible for the management of a health facility or another person authorised in writing by the identified health facility manager may release such confidential information. This amendment will allow, with the consent of the Minister for Health, the release of relevant confidential information to such agencies as the Health Insurance Commission. The provision of such information would assist the investigation of any fraudulent claims by medical practitioners with clinical privileges in the ACT public hospital system. The release of such information is consistent with the principles contained in the Privacy Act.
The Health (Amendment) Bill 1994 also provides for the insertion in the Health Act, under proposed section 22, of the power for the Executive to make regulations. The amendment will allow the Executive to make regulations which are consistent with the Act and which are required or permitted by the Act to give effect to provisions within the Act. I anticipate that the commencement of the Health (Amendment) Bill will assist
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