Australia - Changes Coming re PHI (Prostheses) Rules

For the Australians here - this is buried in the Department of Health and Ageing’s document dump....

• IN-CONFIDENCE A3.21
  KEY DECISION BRIEF
  PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE RULES – AMENDMENT Action Required
  
  Approval of amendments to the Private Health Insurance Rules. Critical Date 25 October 2010
  
  Background
  
  The Department has prepared amendments to the Private Health Insurance (Prostheses) Rules 2010 to create a new Part C to the Prostheses List, as enabled by the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment Act (N0. I) 2010. The new Part C will require health insurers to [provide?] benefits for devices which are not surgically implanted, but provide cost effective clinical outcomes for patients, including insulin pumps and cardiac loop monitors.
  
  The new Part C of the Prostheses List needs to be actioned by the end of October to ensure that there is sufficient time for the transfer of products from Part A of the Prostheses list to the new Part C before the February 2011 Prostheses list is made. This transfer will require consultation with a large number of medical device sponsors.
  
  http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2010 ... ment-dump/

Note: The above extract has been OCR'ed from a "print version", so there may be some strangenesses remaining in the rendering. Also the underling above is mine, for emphasis.

While this has no immediate impact on CPAP devices, it certainly opens the way for lobbying around the issue of consistent benefits for CPAP devices across Private Health Insurers in Australia.

Cheers,

Bill