A crackdown on telehealth incentives in this week's budget came after the government found some doctors had hooked up Skype cameras to their computers and conducted telehealth consultations with colleagues in the same practice so they could claim a $6000 telehealth payment.
New rules will now impose a minimum distance of 15km between practitioners before the incentive can be claimed and doctors will have to perform 10 consultations before they get the full payment.
Yet the biggest e-health gravy train is being run by the body in charge of setting up the new personally controlled e-health record, the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA).
The e-health system will barely be operational from its July 1 start date, but the body in charge of the $760 million system is spending taxpayers' money on lavish seafood dinners, after-dinner speakers, flights and accommodation in connection with functions held in five-star hotels.
Critics are questioning the way NEHTA has spent its three-year, $218m budget after revelations that it has held 731 functions for stakeholders since January last year, while the e-health system is behind schedule.
NEHTA told a Senate estimates committee it had spent $871,000 on taxi fares in the past two financial years, $118,000 on business class international airfares and $2.1m in total on travel.
The authority claims it cancelled this month's planned roadshow to Malaysia to promote the e-health system at a surgeons' conference because of the "tight fiscal environment".
A spokeswoman for NEHTA says the aim of its consultations with more than 500 organisations was to provide information to people who will use the e-health system, which will allow patients to set up a personalised e-health record listing their allergies, medications, X-rays, test results and a health summary.
"Depending on the duration of the function, food may be provided," she points out.
But Weekend Health has learned many of these functions were held in five-star hotels in Sydney, and often included a three-course dinner for hundreds of people in hotel dining rooms, and a comedian or motivational dinner speaker.
Opposition e-health spokesman Andrew Southcott claims the scheme has all the signs of being "pink batts on steroids".
"The fact they are spending money on these dinners when on July 1 no health provider will be able to use an e-health record is scandalous," he says.
Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton says the amount NEHTA has been spending on entertainment is "shocking", especially as it is still unclear whether it has done the job it was set up to do.
Health Minister Tanya Plibersek has been forced to play down expectations about the new scheme as NEHTA runs behind time in delivering the system.
All most patients will be able to do from July 1 is register interest in a personally controlled e-health record, because doctors, hospitals and health services won't have the software to run it.
NEHTA has refused to answer questions about the cost of the dinners and stakeholder meetings but event manager Forum Group Events says it would typically cost about $85 a head to run a two-day conference at a five-star hotel for more than 100 people. A three-course dinner with drinks would typically cost about $120 a head.
Weekend Health is aware of four such dinners held in the past 13 months.
That includes one at Sydney's InterContinental Hotel last month which was attended by about 100 people who were offered steak and seafood, creme brulee or a chocolate dessert, and wine.
Further, NEHTA paid for some guests to fly to Sydney for the two-day event and covered their accommodation bills.
A former policeman was the motivational speaker at the dinner. He did not speak about e-health, instead regaling guests with grisly details about murders while they were eating dessert. One guest reports suffering nightmares that night. Rhys Muldoon, the former Play School presenter, author and confidant of former prime minister Kevin Rudd, was the speaker at another of the dinners last year.
The InterContinental Hotel says commercial confidentiality prevents it from revealing the cost of NEHTA's April conference.
Although NEHTA told a Senate estimates committee it had spent just $37,000 on entertainment and hospitality between July 2011 and February 2012, it did not answer questions from Weekend Health about whether stakeholder engagement events, conferences and dinners were included in the figure.
Disclosure: Karen Dearne attended a NEHTA-funded lunch in Canberra in 2010.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Suse Dunlevy and Karen Dearne
Quelle/Source: The Australian, 12.05.2012
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