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Skye Cappuccio, Optometry Australia CEO

As the Federal treasurer’s speech concludes on tonight’s budget, Optometry Australia CEO Skye Cappuccio shares her take on the areas impacting our profession.

Much in the health space of the 2023-24 Federal Budget handed down tonight was not a surprise. Prior to the budget, the Government had already committed to a $2.2bn investment to overhaul and strengthen Medicare and the primary health care system, including through:

  • The introduction of MyMedicare, a voluntary GP patient registration system, linked to an expansion of blended funding models for patients with complex and chronic conditions
  • A National Scope of Practice Review to support workforces to work at the top of their scope across the country, enabling better patient access to care
  • Greater investment in the My Health Record system, including to support the digital sharing of pathology and diagnostic imaging information and transition My Health Record to “a data-rich platform”
  • A greater role for Primary Health Networks (PHNs) in commissioning allied health and nursing services to enable multidisciplinary health care in underserved communities
  • Supporting the expansion of the primary health care nursing workforce
  • Supporting better access to after-hours primary/GP care

In a not unexpected, but significant, response to the rapidly reducing GP bulk-billing rates across the country, the Budget also announced a tripling of the bulk-billing incentives for GPs, for select community groups.

Through the Budget, the Government also confirmed that as of 1 July 2023, MBS rebates, including for optometry items, will increase by 3.6%. This will bring the rebate for items 10910 and 10911 to $62.15.

Optometry Australia welcomes the Federal Budget’s strong commitment to modernising Medicare, but believes that, to meaningfully impact the community’s access to timely eye care, eye health must be front-and-centre in the reforms.

Eye health is beset by the same issues identified by the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce that have led to the reforms in the Budget: lack of integrated care; freezing (actually cutting) of Medicare rebates; specialist workforce shortages and maldistribution; over reliance on overstretched public hospitals; poor information systems; and eye health professionals prevented from practising to their full scope.

The long-awaited Medicare reform package provides the opportunity to address many of these problems, but only if it is recognised that patients’ eye health is an integral part of their overall health and if optometry is included in the reforms.

Optometry Australia is calling on the Government to:

  • use the National Scope of Practice Review to remove regulatory and funding barriers that prevent optometrists from practising at full scope
  • include optometrists in multidisciplinary team-based care
  • ensure that proven collaborative eye care solutions which enhance patient access and reduce public hospital wait times are developed at scale in the next National Health Reform Agreements
  • integrate eye health information sharing into the new data rich My Health record system.
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Acknowledgement of Country

In the spirit of reconciliation Optometry Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.