Report from the Diagnostic Imaging Clinical Committee - Nuclear Medicine (Now Closed)
Items reviewed
A total of 108 nuclear medicine MBS items were reviewed by the Diagnostic Imaging Clinical Committee, which included:
- Cardiac nuclear medicine items
- General nuclear medicine:
- lung items – 61328, 61340, 61348
- liver and spleen items—61352, 61353, 61356
- hepatobiliary items—61360 and 61361
- Indium-labelled octreotide study—61369
- thallium studies—items 61437, 61438, 61458 and 61461
- thyroid study—item 61473
- Group T3—Therapeutic nuclear medicine items
- Group D2 — Nuclear medicine non-imaging items
- Positron emission tomography (PET) items
- Interventional radiology procedures—Item 35404
- Interventional radiology procedures—Item 35404
- Testicular study—item 61401
- Brain study with blood brain barrier agent—item 61405
- Cerebro-spinal fluid transport study—item 61409
- Dynamic blood flow/regional blood volume quantity study—item 61417
- Repeat planar and SPECT imaging, or repeat planar or SPECT imaging where the previous scan was abnormal or equivocal—item 61462
- Parathyroid study—item 61480
- Adrenal studies —items 61484, 61485
- CT scan performed with SPECT for anatomic localisation/attenuation correction—item 61505
Proposed item changes:
Proposed changes | No. items |
Change | 49 |
No change | 41 |
Delete | 17 |
New item | 2 |
New item for referral to MSAC | 4 |
Report recommendations:
The Diagnostic Imaging Clinical Committee made a total of 22 recommendations. The significant recommendations are summarised as follows:
Cardiac items
To restructure and rationalise the nuclear medicine cardiac items,
by removing planar imaging items,
adding the fee for the exercise ECG item to relevant stress myocardial perfusion scan (MPS) items, and
creating separate items for rest imaging and stress imaging to remove any financial incentive to perform stress and rest studies over separate days.
MBS Positron Emission Tomography (PET) items
Expand the indications (cancer types) for MBS PET services to include all fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)avid solid tumours and
consolidate all MBS PET items into four items: covering diagnosis, staging, response assessment and recurrence (re-staging) for all FDG-avid tumours.
Therapeutic nuclear medicine items
recommending the transfer of funding for therapeutic radionuclides from the MBS to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), increasing fees, pursuing listing of radium-223, and Australian registration of therapeutic nuclear medicine items on the clinical horizon.