The Senate this week passed a motion requiring the Gillard Government to detail the audits of dentists providing services under the Medicare Chronic Disease Dental Scheme. The Government will have to provide information to the Senate by the end of October outlining the number of dentists who have been audited, how many have been required to repay Medicare benefits and why they have been required to do so.
The move follows a concerted campaign to shut down the scheme by the Labor government prior to funding alternative dental schemes such as the long-promised, never-delivered Commonwealth Dental Health plan.
Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Shadow Minister for Mental Health, said the Gillard Government had sought to denigrate the Medicare Chronic Disease Dental Scheme (MCDDS) since before coming to power.
“It has wanted to close the MCDDS and replace it with an inferior scheme for purely ideological reasons,” Senator Fierravanti-Wells said.
“The outcome if it succeeds in doing so will be less dental services for needy patients and worse health outcomes.”
The Senate has twice disallowed Government attempts to close the MCDDS and Senator Fierravanti-Wells noted that Independent and Greens Senators had voted with the Coalition then and supported today’s motion.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that the MCDDS was providing vital dental services to those in most need.
“Health officials told the most recent Senate Estimates that almost 700,000 Australians had been treated under the scheme and received 11 million dental services.
“In contrast the same officials said that the Gillard Government’s proposed Commonwealth Dental Health Program promised to provide just one million dental services over three years – and officials doubted it would achieve its goals.
“The Gillard Government constantly seeks to portray the MCDDS as being widely rorted by dentists and doctors, but even when establishing a taskforce to carry out audits of dentists the then Human Services Minister Chris Bowen admitted that the ‘majority of incorrect claiming [of Medicare benefits] is accidental’.
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It seems that any effort to demonstrate the value of MCDDS will be of no consequence when Senate numbers allow its closure and replacement with “an inferior scheme for purely ideological reasons”. Nevertheless, this required examination will hopefully demonstrate that the vast majority of dentists remain as the ethical practitioners expected in this profession. Harsh penalties must be encouraged, as effective deterrent to any dentist who will fail to maintain the integrity of dentistry.
It is widely known amongst dentists that the CDDS is providing much needed dental treatment to people who are desperate for treatment and in need of help. Dentists have been providing these services at a discount rate to the government and in return the government is alleging rorting and seeking to recuperate its funds on the grounds of noncompliance with paperwork. It is clear that it is not the integrity of dentistry that is at stake but the integrity of the government. Dentists provided services in good faith mostly to disadvantaged people and the government is seeking to ruin them in return.