EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1984 NO. 5
ISSUED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH
HEALTH INSURANCE ACT 1973 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 18 of the Health Legislation Amendment Act 1983, which came into operation on 1 February 1984, amended section 17 of the Act to provide that medicare benefits are not payable in certain circumstances. They are not payable where the service in question relates to a prescribed item and rendered by a medical practitioner to patients of or at recognized State or Territory hospitals - unless the practitioner has entered into an approved agreement with the recognized hospital and is acting in accordance with that agreement. New sub-section 17(4) provides for the Minister for Health to formulate guidelines with which such approved agreements are to comply.
These regulations amend the Health Insurance Regulations to prescribe, for the purposes of new paragraph 17(1) (aa) of the Act, the items in the Medical Benefits Schedule to which the paragraph is to relate.
They came into operation on 1 March 1984.