Ms WORTH (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Family Services)(10.15 a.m.) —I move:

That the bill be now read a second time.

This bill amends provisions in the Health Insurance Act 1973, the Health Insurance Commission Act 1973, the National Health Act 1953 and the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Family Measures) Act 1995.

The bill amends the Health Insurance Commission Act 1973 to remove doubts about whether hedging contracts made incidental to the borrowings or investments of the Health Insurance Commission require ministerial approval. When section 36AA was inserted into the Health Insurance Commission Act 1973, it was not intended that such contracts would require ministerial approval.

The bill also amends the Health Insurance Act 1973 (`the act'). The most significant changes will:

.      allow the claiming and payment of Medicare benefits by means of electronic transmission. This will substantially improve access to Medicare services, especially for many people in rural and remote areas. Doctors will be able to electronically lodge claims for all Medicare services instead of only bulk-billed claims;

.      eliminate unnecessary consideration by a Specialist Recognition Advisory Committee of questions relating to the continued recognition of a specialist or consultant physician, where recognition was intended to be short term for the purposes of a locum tenans or the specialist or consultant physician applies to have that status ended. This amendment is consistent with the government's policy to reduce the extent to which regulatory provisions intrude on the conduct of business and the professions;

.      allow optometrists to charge in excess of the schedule fee in circumstances to be specified in the optometrical undertaking. A revised undertaking will make exceptions in respect of domiciliary visits—as is currently the case—and those occasions where an optometrist attends a patient on the first occasion and the client had attended another optometrist in the previous two years;

.      extend the application of subsection 10(1) to a professional service rendered during a `domestic journey'. A domestic journey will include all forms of domestic travel whether prior to or at the end of an international flight. The provision would enable a person who leaves Australia for an international destination but who, before arrival, is required to return to Australia due to ill health to claim Medicare benefits for any professional services;

.      inform the direction and management by the Commonwealth, states and territories of the immunisation programs by releasing de-identified data for research purposes from the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register. The Privacy Commission has confirmed that the release of information from the register is not in conflict with privacy principles;

.      insert a new clause 128C providing a penalty for charging public patients for the provision of public hospital services in prescribed circumstances. It will be an offence for a medical practitioner where a patient is known to be a public patient to raise a charge or receive any payment for a public hospital service in the circumstances as set out in regulations made under this section and provides a penalty of 50 penalty units; and

.      insert a new subsection 130(4A) which corrects anomalies in the existing secrecy provision (section 130), which make the necessary transmission of confidential information in specific circumstances. It will allow the return of information relating to a Medicare claim to the claimant or practitioner who provided information associated with the claim, without the permission of other persons whose information is associated with the claim.

Mr Deputy Speaker, this bill also makes some minor but important amendments to the National Health Act 1953 governing the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, PBS. Firstly, it introduces a system which will enable a private hospital or residential care facility to be reimbursed for the administration of some pharmaceutical benefits to its patients or residents from the institution's own stocks, in order to obviate the need for a prescription for the pharmaceutical benefits. The system will apply to pharmaceutical benefits determined by the minister to be appropriate for these arrangements and will come into operation on 1 May 1998.

Secondly, it provides for the appointment of an additional member of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee to represent the interests of consumers.

Thirdly, it amends the secrecy provisions, to complement similar amendments being made to the Health Insurance Act 1973, to correct an anomaly which inhibits the necessary transmission of confidential information in certain circumstances.

The bill also makes a number of minor technical amendments to the Health Insurance Act 1973 and to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Family Measures) Act 1995. I present the signed explanatory memorandum to this bill.

Debate (on motion by Mr McMullan) adjourned.