PSR Newsletter - February 2024

Message from the Acting Director

Welcome to the February 2024 edition of the PSR Panel Newsletter.

With the new year already under way with several committees, this year is gearing up to be another busy one for us. Transparency and fairness remain a focus throughout the committee process and with this, we have been working diligently to ensure we have more information available about the process for all involved. Recent publications we have made available on our website include:

• PSR Committee Hearings – Information for participants
• PSR Consultant Guide
• Information gathered by the Director of Professional Services Review: Guidelines for notices to produce.

I am so grateful to everyone involved for the creation of these guides. They are professional, helpful and contribute so much to the training of our teams and the fairness and transparency of our processes. We also continue to ensure we broaden who knows about us and receives our information with our LinkedIn site now becoming more established and a regular weekly posting schedule has been established.

With the recent passing of The Health Insurance Amendment (Professional Services Review Scheme No. 2) Act 2023, which established:

• the office of the Associate Director
• reforms provisions concerning committee constitution for dual-qualified medical specialists
• and allows DPSR to stop the 12-month clock for PURs who are overseas.

With the Department of Health and Aged Care currently looking after the recruitment of the Director and Associate Director roles, once we have confirmation on these positions, we will let you know.

Best wishes everyone, Antonio.

Panel Training

As you know, each year PSR provides in-person training to Panel members, usually in May or June in Sydney and Melbourne.

This year, we are planning to conduct training as follows:

Adelaide:            Friday evening & Saturday 9-10 August

Sydney:              Friday evening & Saturday 26-27July

Melbourne:        Friday evening & Saturday 23-24 August.

More detail about this year’s training and dates will be provided closer to the dates.

Agency activity

PSR operations continue to keep us busy with 71 new referrals and 71 cases finalised already by December.

The case load has been fascinatingly varied – with some consistent referrals (general practitioners with particularly common theme items numbers such as consultations and CDMs) and others that demonstrate the incredible variety of scope of practice and what Medicare supports (cardiology, radiology, radiation oncology, dentistry, nursing, and other referrals coming in). This in turn places significant demands on the staff here, who deal with these challenges so well, and work so hard.

Case outcomes can be found on the PSR Website.

Conflict of Interest – New policy for Panel and Determining Authority members

Last year’s Panel training included a specific segment on Conflict of Interest (COI). Some of this information was then included in our June newsletter. As one of our Special Counsel explained:

When looking at what a COI is, there are several definitions, however the below one is probably one of the best:

when your personal interests, affiliations or relationship impact, have the potential to impact, or could be perceived to impact, on your impartiality or result in an incompatibility with your official duties.

Since then, we have updated our policy and the requirement for all members to not only ensure they have completed a COI form upon commencement with us, or any time anything changes with your circumstances that may potentially perceived as creating the possibility for a conflict – real or otherwise. If in doubt, declare it. Members who have not returned COI forms will be asked to return forms before being considered for Committee appointment.

All COI information is kept in the strictest confidentiality. As always though, if you have any questions, please call Margaret or Andrew to discuss.

Social Media – PSR is now on LinkedIn

In case you missed it - We now have a LinkedIn account for PSR.

Since our LinkedIn site went live last May we are posting regularly on all the happenings in PSR. This includes a post with link to our latest monthly case outcome update when they are released and this newsletter, so like and follow our page and keep up to date with all the latest information.

Federal Court Outcomes

Some recent Federal Court decisions are summarised on PSR’s website.

October 2023 Case Outcomes summaries:

Yoong v Director of Professional Services Review [2023] FCA 1186

Raiz v Director of Professional Services Review (No.2) [2023] FCA 1293

November 2023 Case Outcomes summary:

Tonakie v Director of Professional Services Review [2023] FCA 1365

Continuing Medical Education (CME)

Any Panel members or consultants who have completed work for PSR and require evidence for continuing medical education points, please contact Megan Kilby at megan.kilby@psr.gov.au