Senator John Williams received a letter from Health Minister Sussan Ley with news the option proposed to put Medicare coverage at risk for imaging services was no longer under consideration.

“Big sigh of relief,” Inverell Diagnostic Services manager Alistair Williams said.

A proposed ‘option 2’ within a federal health department Regulation Impact Statement would have removed the Rural Exemption Rule, which allows centres more than 30 kilometres from a base hospital, like Inverell, to operate without an on-site radiologist.

“That would have meant that every patient that needed to have a study here, either paid up front, the full cost, with no rebate or they got in a car and drove to Armidale,” Alistair said.

He said he had 15 people in the waiting area last Monday morning alone, and the centre saw about 350 patient visits last week.

Alastair said many of those people would have been out on the road to complete referrals.

“And there are people who would not have an examination done for simply economic reasons,” he added.

“They’d turn up in diabolical troubles because they’ve not had an examination done in a timely fashion.” 

Inverell is one of 75 rural and regional imaging centres across Australia.

The Inverell centre is part of the Alpenglow group, with 12 locations in NSW and Queensland.

Alpenglow chief executive officer Alan McCarthy said it has only been in the last six months he dared to feel optimistic about the outcome.

He believed the Department of Health was listening to a small segment that had limited understanding of rural and remote health care delivery.

“What I hope has happened is that people in those decision-making positions, setting the policy, got to hear from a much broader audience than they were listening to prior,” he said.

“I do hope that it’s also it’s established lines of communication for the future.”

Senator John Williams said after Alistair raised concerns about the changes to the rule.

Mr Williams carried the concern to the October 2015 Senate Estimates meeting and found the Department of Health grey on the details, and asked questions.

“For a start, where are we going to find 75 radiologists? We don’t have them,” he said.

He added radiologist salaries which were upward of $750,000, toll taken on Inverell district residents forced to travel for services and loss of Inverell doctors left without access to local referrals were additional concerns.

Further discussion will take place on Wednesday, February 10, but Mr Williams felt heartened by Minister Ley’s response.

“I’m very, very confident with the response from the minister, going forward in its current form, will not exclude that 30-kilometres exclusion zone,” he said.