In 2014 the Health Minister committed to reviewing the VPTAS every two years.The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) invited the Cancer Council Victoria and the VPTAS Alliance to attend consultation sessions in October, to contribute to the next VPTAS review. The consultants who ran the sessions are tasked with providing recommendations to DHHS, and the bulk of their work relates to the economic modelling for various changes to the current scheme such as increased reimbursements.
The VPTAS Alliance comprises more than 30 cancer, chronic disease and patient support agencies, all with a strong interest in supporting people who need to travel for treatment. The Alliance was established in 2013 from a series of roundtables hosted by Cancer Council Victoria with both cancer and non-cancer key stakeholders to identify opportunities to improve the VPTAS for people who need to travel long distances to access medical treatment.
In a nutshell:
- We know the annual budget is 16m
- We suggested a flexible approach be considered regarding the distance threshold of 100km required to travel.
- There is support for an IPTASS type scheme whereby people who needed to stay more nights per year are reimbursed at higher rates after a certain threshold
- There is support for broadening the list of services that patients can access to be eligible for VPTAS (i.e. allied health professionals)
Those in attendance were able to describe the challenges faced by rural patients travelling for treatment through examples and the facilitators were open to hearing the Alliance member’s thoughts.