EEG and equity in health care

IF 1.6 4区 医学 Q2 PEDIATRICS Journal of paediatrics and child health Pub Date : 2024-08-14 DOI:10.1111/jpc.16642
Gabriel Dabscheck
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Abstract

On the 4 hours drive to Albury, to do a paediatric neurology outreach clinic, I recently had a phone call with a colleague. ‘How many patients did you refer for tests in Melbourne?’ she asked. ‘How many of your patients will you see on the Hume driving back to Melbourne with you?’.

Like many of my colleagues I do outreach clinics to regional and remote areas. I feel welcomed by the clinicians, the clinic, and the community. I like to think that every patient I see in a clinic regionally is a patient who does not have to commute to a capital city, with all the visible and invisible costs incurred.

The rapid adoption of telehealth, during the pandemic, has gone a long way in addressing some of the equity and access issues that our regional and remote patients have experienced. After 4 years, it is clear that some things can be done well over a video call, but most things can be done better face to face, which is why I still do the outreach clinics. For all the gaps that telehealth has addressed, our patients still have to attend medical investigations and interventions in person.

So I send my patients 4 hours down the road to Melbourne to have neurological investigations, primarily EEG.

As a paediatric specialist I am mostly blind to the economic forces that dictate where my patients have investigations. Health-care economics is a jumble of federal and state funding, private health insurance gaps, and patient co-pays.

There is an EEG service in Albury, but it needs to charge a gap to remain viable. The EEG Medicare rebate is $119.25. Each paediatric EEG takes an hour for an experienced scientist to set up, record and disconnect. The Medicare rebate is expected to cover the cost of the rent, the staff, the consumables, the hardware, the software, the scientist's time, and the neurologist's time. To cover these costs the Medicare rebate would, at least, have to double. This is why many of my patients cannot afford the gap, and instead choose the cost of travel to Melbourne, where there is no charge to them at the public hospital.

As paediatricians, we lobby for our patients all the time. We work with our departments to create specialty and subspecialty clinics, to provide state-of-the-art care. We work with patient advocacy groups to promote funding. Some of us work with industry to promote the adoption of life-saving medications and procedures.

While there are multiple regional services in Victoria offering paediatric EEG services, none offer EEG services for children under 2 years of age. Some centres, such as Bendigo, Ballarat and Shepparton, offer EEG for older children through the state-funded public hospitals. For patients who live near the Murray, no state government-funded EEG services are available.

Four hours is a long time to sit in a car. On my next trip to Albury in August, I am going to call my colleague back and tell her that I know what the solution is to save my patients the 8-h return trip to Melbourne: Increase the Medicare rebate for EEG so clinicians are incentivised to offer more services locally to increase equity, accessibility and affordability to regional and remote patients.

As specialist paediatricians, we are not trained to think of how we work within a market economy. Increasing one rebate for one investigation will unburden patients with one need. A broader review of the way incentives interact with our clinical work will have lasting implications and improve the lives for all of our patients.

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脑电图与医疗保健的公平性。
最近,在驱车 4 小时前往阿尔伯里(Albury)进行儿科神经学外展门诊的途中,我与一位同事通了电话。她问:'你在墨尔本转诊了多少病人去做检查?和我的许多同事一样,我也在地区和偏远地区开展外展门诊。临床医生、诊所和社区都很欢迎我。我愿意认为,我在地区诊所接诊的每一位病人都是不必往返于首府城市的病人,而这将产生所有有形和无形的成本。在大流行期间,远程医疗的快速采用在解决地区和偏远地区病人所经历的一些公平和就医问题方面发挥了很大作用。4 年后的今天,我们可以清楚地看到,有些事情可以通过视频通话很好地完成,但大多数事情可以通过面对面的方式更好地完成,这也是我仍在开展外展门诊的原因。作为儿科专家,我对决定病人在哪里接受检查的经济因素视而不见。医疗保健经济是由联邦和州政府拨款、私人医疗保险缺口和患者自付费用组成的一个大杂烩。在阿尔伯里有一项脑电图服务,但它需要收取缺口费才能维持下去。脑电图医疗保险回扣为 119.25 美元。每项儿科脑电图检查需要一名经验丰富的科学家花费一小时进行设置、记录和断开。医疗保险 "回扣预计将用于支付房租、员工、消耗品、硬件、软件、科学家的时间和神经科医生的时间。要支付这些费用,医疗保险回扣至少要翻一番。这就是为什么我的许多病人无法承受这种差距,而选择前往墨尔本的原因,因为墨尔本的公立医院对他们不收费。作为儿科医生,我们无时无刻不在为病人奔走。我们与科室合作,建立专科和亚专科诊所,提供最先进的医疗服务。我们与患者权益组织合作,促进资金的筹措。虽然维多利亚州有多个地区性服务机构提供儿科脑电图服务,但没有一家为两岁以下儿童提供脑电图服务。本迪戈(Bendigo)、巴拉瑞特(Ballarat)和谢帕顿(Shepparton)等一些中心通过国家资助的公立医院为年龄较大的儿童提供脑电图服务。对于住在墨累附近的病人,则没有州政府资助的脑电图服务。在我八月份的下一次阿尔伯里之行中,我将给我的同事回电话,告诉她我知道如何解决这个问题,让我的病人不用再坐 8 小时的车往返墨尔本:提高脑电图的医疗保险回扣,激励临床医生在当地提供更多服务,以提高地区和偏远地区患者的公平性、可及性和可负担性。增加一项检查的回扣将减轻有一项需求的患者的负担。对激励措施与我们临床工作的互动方式进行更广泛的审查将产生持久的影响,并改善我们所有患者的生活。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
2.90
自引率
5.90%
发文量
487
审稿时长
3-6 weeks
期刊介绍: The Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health publishes original research articles of scientific excellence in paediatrics and child health. Research Articles, Case Reports and Letters to the Editor are published, together with invited Reviews, Annotations, Editorial Comments and manuscripts of educational interest.
期刊最新文献
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