Every state and territory health department in Australia has a scheme in place to enable patients to access treatment not available at local level. The Patient Assisted Schemes, commonly referred to as PATS, are designed to assist patients through the form of a subsidy towards the cost of travel to a specialist, and accommodation costs associated with that journey.
The AMA strongly supports the travel schemes. The AMA is, however, concerned about the operation and effectiveness of the current schemes which have a number of deficiencies that reduce the assessability of people living in rural, regional and remote areas of Australia to the same level of health care as those people living in metropolitan areas.
This paper is not intended to be an exhaustive portrayal of the problems associated with current PATS. Rather, it is intended to outline the main problems of concern held by the AMA in relation to the schemes and outline the AMA’s view in relation to the terms of reference of the inquiry.