HEALTH—CHRONIC DISEASE DENTAL SCHEME

Senator Di Natale, pursuant to notice of motion not objected to as a formal motion, moved general business notice of motion no. 721—That the Senate—

 (a) notes that:

  (i) Medicare has completed audits of 89 dentists who accessed the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme,

  (ii) a further 540 audits are still underway,

  (iii) of the completed audits, only 12 were found to be for the non-provision of claimed services,

  (iv) of the remaining audits found to be non-compliant, non-compliance is in most cases of a technical and administrative nature, whereby the practitioner failed to provide a written quote to the patient or a treatment summary to the referring doctor in a timely fashion, and

  (v) claims for full repayment of services delivered under Medicare to the community may result in undue hardship to dental practitioners who acted in good faith; and

 (b) calls on the Government to waive its right to the repayment of debts incurred by dental practitioners as a result of a Medicare audit where:

  (i) all services claimed were rendered properly and in good faith to eligible patients, and

  (ii) the nature of the non-compliance was purely administrative in nature.

Statements by leave: The Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations (Senator Collins), Senator Di Natale and the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Abetz), by leave, made statements relating to the motion.

Question put and passed.