Travelling interstate for specialist medical treatment?

s-s-a said :

Application form needs to be signed by a local specialist not a GP certifying that the service required is not available in the ACT. The PP is correct that if the service is available but there is a massive wait time, too bad.

Not necessarily true, my mother needed surgery by a gynaecological oncologist and they do visit Canberra every so often for surgery but the wait would have been too long for a good survival rate – so when the Canberra Hospital doctors said they couldn’t do the complicated surgery her specialist gynaecologist organised for her to have the urgent surgery at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Sydney in the next week. They paid for the travel by plane but you are right about the accommodation costs for family being a very small amount. Luckily we didn’t have to stay there very long. We did have trouble getting Qantas to accept mum as a passenger back to Canberra after surgery – they were being arses about her needing a wheelchair to get to the plane.

I wish I had known this two weeks ago!

Last week I had to spend a night in Sydney for specialist day surgery because the waiting time in the ACT was utterly ludicrous.

The waiting time to see the specialist for an initial consultation in Canberra was one year to the day. Then I’d joint the waiting list for the surgery. In Sydney it was all done in three months, initial consultation – further testing – day surgery.

From what the specialist in Sydney told me, the guy I was referred to in Canberra couldn’t do this surgery anyway and he’d to refer me to a Sydney urologist anyway.

Wonder if I can still make a claim?

I wouldn’t have thought the intent of the scheme was to reimburse all costs, but rather to provide support for people when they need it.

I knew about this, as my mother had to have an operation for cockularear, she lived in Mackay, and would go back to Brisbane for check ups, it’s not so straight forward, a lot of paperwork then.

I could have received treatment here, but the specialist here did not diagnose me, she said nothing was wrong, durrrr! I was really fed up, I had gone to many doctor’s here in Canberra, no one could diagnose me, I’m sure they thought it was in my head, one doctor told me to take up dancing, god knows how that was going to help me. I was in pain with other complications.
So I made an appointment with a specialist in Sydney, yay got diagnosed, not going crazy, NERVE DAMAGE, who would have thought, fell on my arse years ago and have damaged my tailbone.
What I would like to know is, if I could not be diagnosed here am I entitled to get the patient travel assistant scheme?

The PP is right, it doesn’t come close to the cost of accommodation. If you want petrol money, you have to keep original receipts from when you bought petrol (which I find bizarre considering some of the new diesel vehicles could make it to Sydney and back without a refill) but they still pay you per km??

Application form needs to be signed by a local specialist not a GP certifying that the service required is not available in the ACT. The PP is correct that if the service is available but there is a massive wait time, too bad.

Uhoh, the OP’s link says the guidelines are being reviewed (again). Check the rules just prior to travel to make sure the goalposts have not moved.

Usually their admin goes smoothly, but the most memorable time it wasn’t they managed to book the patient and carer on different flights. Which was interesting considering that airline regulations would not permit the patient to travel unaccompanied. Thankfully this mistake was noticed early enough to be fixed easily.

and it doesn’t even come close to the actual costs of accommodation…

MHW

It is a good scheme. Waiting lists, waiting times etc do not count as not available, just to clarify. It covers around $75 – $90 per night (in case of children one carer/parent receives this amount not both) and a reasonable cost for petrol.

It is usually something you find out about when you need it, our paediatrician told us about it. 🙂

Was funded federally until 1987, budgets are now held by states/territories, but all of them have a scheme of some description.

nope my mistake – I just knew it was used here and NSW

I thought iptass was federally funded