Report on performance
Performance
Negotiated agreements
The Determining Authority ratified 27 agreements between the Director and practitioners. The practitioners concerned were GPs and Vocationally Recognised General Practitioners (VRGPs: 22), medical practitioners (four) and one optometrist. They were from New South Wales (18), Tasmania (one), Queensland (five) and Victoria (three). Descriptions of these cases are on pages 19–37.
Sanctions forming part of these agreements were that:
- 27 practitioners be reprimanded
- one practitioner be partially disqualified from Medicare for three years
- 24 practitioners be fully disqualified from Medicare for between two and 18 months
- 24 practitioners to make repayments of Medicare benefits from $3500 to $165,000; totalling $1,130,793.
For these agreements it took an average of 128 days (155 in 2006–07) from the time the request to review was received from Medicare Australia to referral of the agreement to the Determining Authority, against a legislated timeframe of 13 months.
It took the Determining Authority an average of 17 days (16 in 2006–07) against a legislated timeframe of one month to ratify the negotiated agreements.