Recommendation 5

The Committee recommends that the Minister for Health and Ageing work with State and Territory Health Ministers through the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference to ensure equity in access by publicly funding bariatric surgery, including multidisciplinary support teams, for those patients that meet appropriate clinical guidelines.
Agreed.

The Australian Government recognises that bariatric surgery should continue to be one of the treatment options available to clinicians managing people with obesity.

The National Health Reform Agreement agreed by the Council of Australian Governments on 2 August 2011 commits State and Territory Governments to providing patients with equitable access to services on the basis of need within a clinically appropriate period. Under this Agreement, the Australian and State and Territory Governments are jointly responsible for funding public hospital services, including growth in services and costs. The Australian Government has agreed to provide at least $16.4 billion in extra public hospital funding to State and Territory Governments between 2014-15 and 2019-20. This funding is in addition to commitments announced through previous iterations of the health reforms, and targeted funding for individual hospitals such as the Royal Hobart. The Commonwealth will meet:

• 45 per cent of efficient growth funding for the period 2014-2015 to 2016-2017, and
• 50 per cent of efficient growth funding from 2017-2018 onwards.

In addition to this, the Australian Government provides Medicare rebates for obesity related services including bariatric surgery that are listed on the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS). Rebates for in hospital procedures are 75% of the MBS fee for the applicable surgical procedure. In 2011 the Department of Health and Ageing undertook a review of MBS items for the surgical treatments of obesity. The Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC) considered the report in November 2011 and recommended initiatives to improve bariatric procedures and to better define the target groups appropriate for different procedures. On 12 June 2012 the Minister for Health, the Hon Tanya Plibersek endorsed the MSAC recommendations and relevant stakeholders are currently being consulted pending implementation.