Federal Member for Parkes, Mark Coulton has welcomed a decision to include the north-eastern part of the Parkes electorate in Australia’s largest health care reforms to Medicare since it began in the 1980’s.
Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network (PHN) will become one of the lead sites confirmed to trial Australia’s first Health Care Homes under the Commonwealth Government’s Healthier Medicare reforms.
“Health Care Homes is a better way of delivering Medicare for people living with chronic illnesses and will put the north-east NSW region at the forefront of these landmark reforms” Mr Coulton said
“It’s estimated as many as one-in-two people across this region suffer from a chronic health condition, with one-in-five living with any mix of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, mental health issues, eye disease, respiratory problems, arthritis or more.
“They will now have the opportunity to enrol at a local Health Care Home, which will become a one-stop-shop or ‘home base’ to support the complex task of managing their health.
“Our Healthier Medicare reforms give Australians a local health care team – led by their GP – they can trust to coordinate their health care needs throughout the year, ensuring patients remain happy, healthy and out-of-hospital.”
Under the Coalition Government, Hunter New England and Central Coast PHN will become one of ten areas around the nation trialling Health Care Homes for up to 65,000 at up to 200 medical practices.
Close to $120 million is being allocated to roll out the first stage of Health Care Homes, including over $90 million in payments to support patient care and $21 million for infrastructure, training and evaluation.
More information is available at
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/health-care-homes