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March 19th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Updated
Dentists caught up in an audit of a public dental program say the injustice they feel will make it more difficult to get a universal dental care scheme off the ground.
The Government began auditing the billion-dollar Chronic Diseases Dental Program in 2009, and since then almost 50 dentists have been ordered to pay back millions in Medicare payments.
This morning the Opposition moved a private members’ bill to stop such practitioners having to pay back any money, and it has some prospects of success, with the Greens saying they support its intent.
Doctor Wilma Johnson from Tasmania has been one of the dentists willing to speak out about the audit.
She was one of the first chosen to be reviewed in 2009 as part of a random sample. She has been ordered to pay back $24,000, relating to 24 patients, but is refusing to do so.
Dr Johnson says relations between the Federal Government and dentistry have been damaged.
“It’s … going to make it very unlikely that we’re ever going to get a public dental scheme off the ground because the good will of the profession has been ruined, and we don’t trust the Government anymore,” she said.
The majority of the dentists say they only made clerical errors, and there has been a lack of information about their obligations.
Like many cases, Dr Johnson says she is being penalised for failing to write back to the referring GP to outline a treatment plan for her patient.
“I was working in a branch practice in the southernmost region of Tasmania – that branch practice is now shut as a result of this debacle,” she said.
“If I can get into that much trouble over a bit of missing paperwork – a piece of paper that I didn’t know I needed to send – how many other things can go wrong?”
‘Quite insulting’
Doctor Dragan Antolos from Victoria has a similar story; he says he was compliant in all paperwork, but his letter to the GP was sent late.
“They have confirmed that the treatment … has been appropriate and has been done to a high quality,” he said.
“But the fact that my GP letter was sent late has meant that I’ve had to refund the total amount of my fees two years later for every patient that I treated under the scheme.
“In my case, it was about $90,000.”
Dr Antolos has been scathing of Medicare and the Government, accusing them of entrapping dentists, who are mostly unfamiliar with the Medicare system.
He says it is an injustice to group dentists who have made clerical errors in with those who are guilty of rorting the system.
“Even if this paperwork requirement was fulfilled it would make no difference at all to how I would manage the patient, to the patient outcomes,” he said.
“To suggest that somehow this paperwork has an impact on your treatment as a dentist is … actually quite insulting, really, and I think shows a bit of a lack of understanding of what actually happens on the coal face.”
The Human Services Department says as at the end of January, 89 cases had been closed, with just over two thirds of dentists found-non compliant.
They have been ordered to pay back $21.6 million.
‘Good, honest’
But Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton, who introduced the bill, says many dentists are being unfairly penalised.
“The Coalition does not defend anyone who has done the wrong thing,” he said.
“If there are dentists who have indeed rorted this Commonwealth health program then they should be held accountable, weeded out and punished to the full extent of the law.
“But that is not what we’re talking about here. We are talking about the good, honest, community-minded dental health practitioners who have provided dental services under the Chronic Diseases Dental Scheme.”
Mr Dutton says he is hopeful the bill will be voted on by the end of May, and it does have reasonable prospects of success.
Independent MP Rob Oakeshott says he has already raised individual cases of dentists in his electorate with the Health Minister, and he will listen to the debate with interest.
The Greens have gone further, with their health spokesman Richard Di Natale saying they support the intent of the bill.
He has pointed to the fact that the Government has tried twice to shut down the scheme.
“We’re concerned that they’ve been using this as an opportunity to undermine what has been a scheme that’s provided services to a number of people who wouldn’t otherwise afford them,” he said.
Senator Di Natale says the problems are another illustration of the need for a universal dental health scheme.
Topics:
dental,
federal-government,
australia
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