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Medicare Review – Time to look at the foundations of our health system

Call for expressions of interest to join a working party to update Speech Pathology Australia’s Clinical Guideline and Position Statement for Working in a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Society Australia’s population continues to become increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse. Therefore, Australian speech pathologists need to be informed by clinical guidelines containing the most up-to-date evidence and recommendations for practice with this population. If you are interested or currently involved in practice with culturally and linguistically diverse populations and feel you could make a valuable contribution to Speech Pathology Australia’s position statement and clinical guideline, I invite you to join the working party for the development of these documents. I am seeking clinicians, researchers and professionals (including speech pathologists, educators, interpreters and bi-cultural support workers) with experience in supporting culturally and linguistically diverse adult and paediatric populations in a broad range of settings including hospitals, community health, private practice, schools and educational settings. If you are interested in collaborating on this project, please send your CV along with a brief statement outlining your experience in this area and how you feel you could contribute to the development of these documents (maximum 500 words) to sverdon@csu.edu.au by no later than 5pm on Monday 13 July 2015 .

The Australian Government has embarked on a review of Medicare with three areas of focus:

A Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) Review

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2. A Primary Health Care Advisory Group

3. A review of Medicare compliance rules and benchmarks. The Government has committed to drawing on a broad range of expertise to inform the process – including Allied Health. Recommendations for actions/changes in each reform area are expected in late 2015. While no ‘savings’ target has been released by the Government, it is expected that the Review will identify areas of the MBS that can significantly reduce cost and improve sustainability of the system. It is anticipated that the Chronic Disease Management items will be closely scrutinised. Speech Pathology Australia is preparing a formal submission to the Review process. We are seeking advice from members including: • What does and does not work about the current MBS funding structure for speech pathology services? How can the current MBS funding system be improved? • Are there particular conditions that should attract MBS items for speech pathology? Why? • Are there particular speech pathology treatments/ interventions that have demonstrated a strong level of evidence for effectiveness that should be funded? It is important that our submission is informed by the views of members working in private practice across Australia and by the best available evidence of clinical effectiveness. Please send your thoughts to Ronelle Hutchinson, Manager Policy and Advocacy at policy@speechpathologyaustralia.org.au , join the FB Private Practice group discussions or give Ronelle a call on 1300 368 835 by 30 June . •

Sarah Verdon Working in a CALD Society Project Officer

Ronelle Hutchinson Manager, Policy and Advocacy

Speak Out June 2015

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www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au