EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1982 NO.157
ISSUED BY AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH
HEALTH INSURANCE REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
Sub-section 133(1) of the Health Insurance Act 1973 (‘the Act’) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing all matters required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed, or which are necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
Section 33 of the Act provides for the payment by the Commonwealth of daily bed payments in respect of each day upon which an approved bed is occupied by an eligible person as an in-patient in a private hospital in a State or the Australian Capital Territory. The Act defines an approved bed as a bed included in the number of beds to which the approval of a hospital under section 2.4 of the Act relates, and defines an eligible person as being an Australian resident, which is also defined under the Act. The Northern Territory is, by virtue of section 23E of the Act, regarded as a State for the purposes of section 33.
Sub-section 33(1) of the Act provides for two levels of daily bed payment, being $28 in the case of a surgical bed and $16 in any other case. A surgical bed is deemed under sub-section 33(5) of the Act to be an approved bed occupied by an eligible person, during a stay as an in-patient of a hospital, to whom there is rendered a “surgical procedure” during that stay. A “surgical procedure” is defined by sub-section 33(12) of the Act as meaning a service to which a prescribed item relates. An item is defined in the Act as an item in the table. This table is the table of medical services, contained in Schedule 1 to the Act, which sets out as items the medical services recognised for medical benefits purposes under the Act.
The purpose of the statutory rules is to amend the list of items currently prescribed under sub-section 33(12) of the Act. This list of items, indicating the permissible “surgical procedures” for the purposes of section 33, is contained in Schedule 4 to the Health Insurance Regulations. The statutory rules amend Schedule 4 by including 19 additional items, and omitting 14 items from those items currently prescribed.
…/3.
The amendments to the list of prescribed items are consequent upon amendments of the table of medical services by the Health Insurance (Variation of Fees and Medical Services) (No. 24) Regulations which came into operation on 1 July 1982. The items included in the list are new items, inserted into the table of medical services by those regulations which, in common with the items already in the list, relate to surgery of a substantial nature. The items omitted from the list are items deleted from the table of medical services by those regulations.
The statutory rules came into operation on 1 July 1982 to coincide with the coming into operation of the Health Insurance (Variation of Fees and Medical Services) (No. 24) Regulations.