Now this isn’t something that Glam Adelaide would normally cover… But after seeing post upon post in our Facebook feed we thought that it was only right that we clear up those rumours.
So for those of you who may have been living under a rock, reports are rife today that women will have to pay for a pap smear. An already icky but totally necessary (and life saving) procedure. It is safe to say that the rumours have gone positively viral. We can’t scroll two posts down our Facebook homepage before we come across another article share or status about the issue.
When an email popped up in our inbox this afternoon in regards to the story, you can imagine that our interest was at peak level.
Here’s the deal.
A spokesperson for Minister for Health Sussan Ley has today said, “There are no changes proposed in MYEFO regarding the cost of either receiving or delivering a physical pap smear examination undertaken by your GP or specialist, nor their billing practices.
Nor is there any reduction in the dollar-value of the Medicare rebate a patient receives to undertake associated pathology tests.”
The spokesperson goes on to say, “Changes in MYEFO relate to an inefficient payment – worth between $1.40 and $3.40 – that is paid direct to pathology corporations separate to the Medicare rebate. It is therefore not part of the patient’s Medicare rebate, as some have tried to claim today.
Alleged claims by pathologists about the potential cost of raising their prices as a result of any changes are also misleading, because they have omitted the value of the Medicare rebate a patient receives from the Government to help cover this very cost.”
Finally the spokesperson noted that, “This payment was also only introduced in 2009 at a cost of $500 million over five years – it is not a long-standing or fundamental pillar of Medicare.
This is evidenced by the fact bulk billing rates for pathology are at similar levels now as they were prior to the introduction of this alleged incentive payment.”
So basically NO, according to today’s email from the Minister for Health, you won’t be paying for pap smears from the middle of this year.
Please note that since we published this article a source who works within the pathology industry has said, “Bulk billing of pathology testing is being cut, not just pap smears and this will have a massive negative impact on private pathology providers (not public as they will simply absorb the cost back into the public healthy system).
Basically this means that to counteract the cuts, most pathology providers will have to pass on the cost or go bust.”
We will keep an eye on this sure to be on going drama…
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