AMA submission in response to Specialist and Consultant Physician Consultation Clinical Committee Reports

The AMA submission to the MBS Review Specialist and Consultant Physician Consultation Clinical Committee (SCPCCC) report is only a summary of the key issues, concerns and feedback raised by the AMA’s members, Councillors and other professional bodies. If further consideration is going to be given with proceeding with some, or all of these recommendations, the AMA suggests that there should be a widely publicised forum, with adequate lead time to discuss them with the profession – before the MBS Taskforce considers them further, and it should include the necessary information which is missing from the report. The AMA noted in its submission that it is limited in being able to respond to the report more meaningfully due to these constraints, and in the absence of a compelling argument, backed with the data to allow modelling, disagrees with a number of the key recommendations outlined it the report.

In particular, the AMA is unable to support the proposed time tiered attendance items given the significant concerns discussed in its submission, the unknown potential impact on specialist consultants broadly, and on the various specialties more specifically – due in large part to the fact that no fees are proposed, nor any modelling provided.