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.

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’.

“The Government has been asked to detail the audit outcomes by October 31.”

* Senator Fierravanti-Wells: To move—That—

(a) the Senate:

(i) notes that:

(A) more than 680 000 Australians have received treatment for dental care under the Medicare Chronic Disease Dental Scheme (the scheme),

(B) more than 11 million dental services have been provided under the scheme,

(C) on 10 June 2010 the Minister for Human Services (Mr Bowen) announced a Medicare Australia taskforce

No. 52—19 September 2011 9 (the taskforce) had been established to investigate dentists’

compliance with the scheme, and

(D) initial audits had been carried out on 49 dentists with a further 250 dentists to be audited,

(ii) recognises that most dentists act in good faith in providing much needed services under the scheme, and

(iii) calls on the Government to desist from pursuing onerous financial restitution from dentists that have made inadvertent, minor or other administrative errors in providing appropriate clinical services to eligible patients; and

(b) there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing (Senator Ludwig), by 5 pm on Monday, 31 October 2011, the following:

(i) the number of dentists audited by the taskforce to 31 October 2011 and as a result the number of dentists required to:

(A) repay Medicare benefits,

(B) repay Medicare benefits where the services claimed have not been provided, and

(C) repay Medicare benefits where the audit process found services claimed had been provided, and

(ii) copies of all documentation provided to dentists about the scheme since it commenced.