While there has been widespread coverage of the $7 GP co-payment model being replaced with the “optional” $5 co-payment model, there was one line in the joint media release from Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Minister for Health Peter Dutton on Tuesday which affects thousands of allied health practitioners around the country:

Additionally Medicare fees for all services provided by GPs, medical specialists, allied health practitioners, optometrists and others will remain at their current level until July 2018.

Optometry Australia was quick to issue a media release on Wednesday, saying that the sustainability of Australia’s eye care system has been threatened, and that the eye health of millions of Australians has been put at risk by these budget measures.

Optometry Australia CEO Genevieve Quilty has requested an urgent meeting with Mr Dutton, and has said that “we will write to the government seeking exemption from the indexation freeze and similar exemptions for poor and vulnerable people.”

Optometry Australia national president Kate Gifford said that “the announcement yesterday by Mr Abbott relating to GP co-payments contained a sting for all optometry patients –a further two year freeze on Medicare fees for optometry services, along with other allied health practitioners, until July 2018.

The optometry sector already has a freeze on indexation of Medicare items that has been in place since 2012 and now the Government has extended this further. These additional freezes, coming on top of an almost 5% rebate reduction effective 1 January 2015, have the potential to threaten access to essential preventative care within every Australian community.”

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