Rebate hitch a threat to lives
A CRAZY bureaucratic Catch 22 means 40,000 Aussies can’t get a health fund rebate for a lifesaving procedure to correct their irregular heartbeat and prevent a stroke.
The $9000 medical device used in the catheter ablation procedure can only be funded by health funds if it is on the government’s Prostheses List.
It can’t get on the Prostheses List because it does not stay inside the body after the procedure: it is removed.
Because health funds can’t pay for the device, privately insured patients have to wait 18 months for the procedure in a public hospital.
This absurd situation comes as Health Minister Greg Hunt is attacking public hospitals for treating privately insured patients.
Tanya Hall, chief executive of Hearts 4 Heart, says 460,000 Australians suffer from atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat where the heart doesn’t pump blood efficiently around the body.
It can lead to blood clots that block the blood supply to major organs and cause strokes.
Many people who suffer the condition cannot control it using medication and have to make repeated expensive visits to hospital; some can’t work.
It’s estimated around 40,000 people would benefit from a catheter ablation procedure where a thin wire with an electrode on its tip is put into the body through a blood vessel in the leg.
The wire is pushed up to the artery in the heart where it sends out radiofrequency waves to inactivate the part of the heart producing abnormal signals.
Ms Hall said she was unable to work and was visiting hospital emergency departments weekly, but had to wait for 12 months to get the procedure at a public hospital even though she was insured.
“I had the ablation and within a week was back into work and exercising and normal living,” she said.
“The Prostheses List needs to be updated so it is in line with the 21st century.”
Despite her organisation raising the issue with the last three health ministers nothing has happened, she said.
“The way I see it I’m paying top dollar for private insurance and I have a problem I should be covered for,’’ Ms Hall said.
Private Healthcare Australia chief Rachel David says health funds have nothing against the right technology being funded for the right patients at a fair price.