MBS colonoscopy items should require gastros to keep GPs in the loop: review
The 2019 changes to colonoscopy items have not achieved their goal of reducing low-value procedures, says the draft report.
Providing colonoscopy reports to a patient’s GP should be part of the Medicare items for gastroenterologists, the MBS Review Advisory Committee has recommended.
A draft report on Medicare’s colonoscopy items, which were split from two main items to eight back in 2019, was put out for consultation last month by the committee — the permanent version of the 2015-2020 MBS Review Taskforce.
It said the new items “had not achieved” their goal of discouraging low-value colonoscopies and reducing total colonoscopy numbers despite having more specific criteria based on requisite risk factors.
Medicare funded almost 650,000 colonoscopies in 2022/23 compared with 600,000 in 2015/16.
