Closure of Medicare Chronic Disease Dental Scheme
The Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek announced a new $4 billion dental reform package on 30 August 2012. The package targets children and low income adults. Minister Plibersek additionally announced that the Government has chosen to close the Medicare Chronic Diseases Dental Scheme (CDDS). The scheme costs the Commonwealth $1 billion per year.
As a result of the closure, chronic diseases patients in NSW (including people with HIV) will lose access to $360 million per annum in Commonwealth funding under the Chronic Diseases Dental Scheme. The scheme delivered significant therapeutic benefit to people with HIV and will be greatly missed. Positive Life NSW has promoted the scheme to people with HIV since it began in November 2008.
It is important that you are aware that the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme (formally the EPC Dental Scheme) will be closed to new patients from Saturday 8 September 2012. Treatment for existing patients must be completed by Friday, 30 November 2012.
People with HIV who have a Health Care Card will now need to access dental services via the public system. This will lead to increased demand on public dental services in NSW, further exacerbating long dental waiting lists. Those without a Health Care Card will need to pay for private dental treatment.
In the interim Positive Life NSW would like to provide the following link to the Australian Government’s Department of Health & Ageing website.
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/BC3E8AE25F723A81CA257345000A9153/$File/Closure%20Q&As%20for%20patients.pdf
This link provides answers to some of the commonly asked questions about the closure of the Medicare CDDS scheme as provided by Department of Health and Ageing.
Positive Life NSW will continue to update our website as more information becomes available.
For further information please contact Medicare Australia’s Patient Enquiry Line on 132 011.
About this article
- The content of this article was checked for accuracy at the time of publication. We endeavour to correct errors in articles on our web site as we become aware of them, but in some cases articles may contain errors.
- We urge our readers to make every effort to ensure any information found on our website is up-to-date and relevant for their needs before relying on it to make medical decisions – your doctor can help with this, or you can call the Positive Life NSW office.
This page last updated: 09/06/2012 - 4:26pm
Comments
Please stay on topic and be polite. All comments are reviewed by the website editor in line with our Comment Guidelines before being posted to the site.
Post new comment