“New” dental program not so new
August 16, 2007

Legislation introduced into Federal Parliament today reveals that the Howard Government’s ‘new’ chronic disease dental program has exactly the same eligibility criteria as the old program.

Bob Debus, Federal Labor candidate for Macquarie, said the program had only helped 7228 people across the entire country in three years. The ‘new’ program was announced in the May federal Budget.

“This is a flawed program because it simply pours more money into a failed scheme which has been plagued by low take-up,” said Mr Debus.

“This will do nothing to help the 5700 people waiting for dental assessments in our region. Nor will it help the 2200 people waiting on dental treatment waiting lists.

“This is a serious situation — in Orange, Bathurst and Cowra, 762 people are waiting for dentures and 593 people are waiting for treatment.
“We need real solutions so everyone can have healthy teeth and gums, or decent dentures.”

Mr Debus said the low take-up of the chronic disease program was largely due to a restrictive referral process and complex eligibility criteria, limiting coverage to those whose oral health exacerbates their chronic disease.

These restrictions remain unchanged by yesterday’s legislation.
“Around Australia, 650,000 people are languishing on public dental waiting lists,” said Mr Debus.

“After 11 years of ignoring the dental crisis and just weeks before an election, Mr Howard has taken the smallest of steps to begin to address this massive problem.

“The rules for this program are the same, the election gloss is just different.”

Federal Labor will re-establish a Commonwealth Dental Program and work with the States to make dental care accessible to working families.

Eligibility for Medicare dental services:

(a) the service is provided to a person whose dental condition is exacerbating a chronic and complex condition that is being managed by a medical practitioner (including
a general practitioner, but not a specialist or consultant physician) under an EPC plan; and
(b) the service is recommended in the person's EPC plan as part of the management of the person's chronic and complex condition; and
(c) the person is referred to the eligible dental practitioner by the medical practitioner using a referral form that has been issued by the Department (of Health and Ageing) or a
referral form that substantially complies with the form issued by the Department; and
(d) the person is not an admitted patient of a hospital or day-hospital facility; and
(e) after the assessment, the eligible dental practitioner gives a written report to the referring medical practitioner; and
(f) in the case of a service in respect of which a private health insurance benefit is payable - the person who incurred the medical expenses in respect of the service has elected
to claim the medicare benefit in respect of the service, and not the private health insurance benefit;
- to a maximum of 3 services (including any services to which this item or item 10976 or 10977 applies) in a calendar year