Dental scheme still open

On September 16, the Senate blocked the Federal Government’s bill to remove the Enhanced Primary Care Dental Scheme for chronic conditions for a second time.

This means that a further bill cannot be introduced into parliament until March 17, 2009. For the next six months this scheme will still be open to people with HIV who want to use a private dentist for dental work to be reimbursed by Medicare. (People need to consult their GP first to arrange their enrolment [1]The act of signing up participants into a study. Generally this process involves evaluating a participant with respect to the eligibility criteria of the study and going through the informed consent process. and it is important that your dentist agrees to be a part of this scheme as well.)

It is hoped that even if the bill is reintroduced by the federal government that Opposition senators will, at the very least, agree to “grandfather” current people on the scheme for a period of time as a condition of giving any changes their support.