Published at The Conversation, Tuesday 2 April

Medicare funding is slowly creeping into the 21st century. The 19th-century model of individual fees for individual services – suitable for an era when medicine was essentially dealing with episodic conditions – is being supplemented with a new fee to better manage the care of people with diabetes.

The budget announcement, as part of the Strengthening primary care package, is for a new annual payment for each person with diabetes who signs up with a specific GP. Funding is provided for about 100,000 people to sign up – about 10% of all people with diabetes in Australia.

The new item number is consistent with the recent MBS review Report on General Practice, which recommended a move toward voluntary enrolment.

The precise details of the new fee – including the annual amount and any descriptors – have not yet been released. But it should encourage practices to move towards a more prevention-oriented approach to chronic disease management, including using practice nurses to call patients to check up on their condition, and using remote monitoring technology.

The budget announcement contained no evaluation strategy for the initiative. The government should produce such a strategy soon.

The Conversation