The Health Minister says:
"PATIENTS WIN AS NURSES AND MIDWIVES ACCESS MEDICARE AND THE PBS
[Comments and highlighting added by the blogger]Nurse Practitioners and Midwives will from today be able to access the Medicare Benefits Schedule and provide Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme medicines in the community.
For the first time highly skilled Nurse Practitioners and Midwives will be able to provide taxpayer subsidised services to patients outside of the public system in medical practices and the community.
[Blogger: We don't know of any midwives who have been successful in their applications for Medicare and PBS. Readers are asked to provide links to any press releases that may identify midwives who have been awarded Medicare provider numbers
ps - one midwife has informed APMA that she is now 'eligible'/]
ps - one midwife has informed APMA that she is now 'eligible'/]
This is a momentous day for the nursing and midwifery professions and a great day for patients who will be able to claim a rebate, and benefit from better access, closer to home in a wider range of settings.
[Blogger: Home birth is not included in the Medicare reforms. Women planning home birth may be able to get Medicare rebates on midwives' charges for prenatal and postnatal care, but not for birth. The only Medicare rebates for birth are for birth in hospital, attended privately by the midwife who has visiting access arrangements with the hospital, and collaboration arrangements with a named medical practitioner.]
...
Midwives will be able to deliver maternity care, including antenatal and postnatal care in the community, and undertake deliveries in a hospital.
...[Blogger: Medical practitioners are not required to work in collaboration with midwives.]
Nurses and Midwives will be required to work in collaboration with medical practitioners when providing MBS services and PBS prescriptions.
For today's article Medicare extended to nurses, midwives by Mark Metherell in The Age, click here.
