Report on performance
Determining Authority activities
The Determining Authority received 20 cases this year.
Negotiated Agreements
The Determining Authority ratified five negotiated agreements on first presentation; a sixth was not ratified by the Determining Authority, in the first instance. A new negotiated agreement addressing the Determining Authority’s concerns was subsequently ratified.
Sanctions agreed as part of the ratified agreements were that:
- six practitioners be reprimanded
- four practitioners be partially disqualified from Medicare for a total of 63 months
- six practitioners agreed to make repayments totalling $594,887 (from $14,887 to $400,000).
The six negotiated agreements were ratified in an average of 16 days (22 in 2005–06) against a legislated timeframe of one month.
Determinations
Nine draft determinations and 10 final determinations were issued from findings in Committee reports.
The Determining Authority took an average of 146 days (164 in 2005–06) to make the nine draft determinations and an average of 118 days to issue the 10 final determinations.
Federal Court action caused delays in issuing the final determinations in two cases.
During the year 14 final determinations came into effect. The sanctions imposed by these effective final determinations included:
- reprimand and counselling
- repayment in 10 determinations totalling $1,155,980.84
- full disqualification periods in four cases from six weeks to three years totalling three years six months and two weeks
- partial disqualification periods in eight cases from three months to two years totalling 10 years six months
- full suspension of the authority to dispense PBS pharmaceuticals.