The $739m announced last year will fund ‘effective and innovative treatments’, support medical practitioners and weed out ‘bad actors’, says DVA.
Veterans will be able to access care provided by registered medical practitioners that includes medicinal cannabis, MDMA for PTSD and psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, according to new details released by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs today.
In last year’s MYEFO $739.2 million was awarded to the DVA to assist veterans in getting help early, shifting the focus towards prevention.
Today the DVA has provided greater detail on how money will be spent.
“Consistent with the findings of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, DVA will now have a greater focus on early intervention and prevention, working closely with the Department of Defence to identify risks earlier and act sooner,” said the announcement from Matt Keogh, minister For Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel.
“This includes using insights from claims decision-making to support Defence’s proactive approaches, and making it easier for veterans to access treatment and rehabilitation as early as possible to improve wellbeing outcomes.”making to support Defence’s proactive approaches, and making it easier for veterans to access treatment and rehabilitation as early as possible to improve wellbeing outcomes.
The department said that “once a medical condition is accepted as service-related”, medicinal cannabis, MDMA for PTSD and psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression could be made available to veterans.
It also said it was also supporting medical practitioners by updating its guidance on fees and, as the minister said at the Press Club in December, making sure that payments for impairment assessment reports was equivalent to payments for reports in other jurisdictions and “better reflect actual costs to practitioners”.
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The funding included $203 million for weeding out “bad actors” and ensuring veterans and their families weren’t being exploited by them.
“The government’s significant investment in DVA since 2022 has meant claims decisions and funds are flowing more efficiently than they were under the previous government. Bad actors are seeking to take advantage of improved Government service delivery and we are scaling up DVA’s integrity and compliance efforts to match,” the department said.
“We will stop medical practitioners and unscrupulous veteran advocates taking advantage of veterans and those lodging fraudulent medical reports or claims for treatment provided.”
GP and veteran Associate Professor Michael Clements has been treating veterans in the garrison city of Townsville in north Queensland for over a decade.
He told The Medical Republic the funding was welcomed, and much of what was in today’s press release was expected.
But he said the unaddressed elephant in the room was the base government rebate for health services, and that was preventing veterans from being able to get care from GPs and other specialists around the country.
“Under legislation, DVA rebates are 115% of whatever the Medicare rebate is. So that used to mean something, until Medicare got so poor now that Medicare is a really bad indicator.
“The government’s put new money into bulk billing incentives, but not new money into rebates. So DVA really missed out in the big increase into the bulk billing incentives.
“And so whereas veterans used to have no trouble finding a GP or a surgeon or a physician that would be happy to see them, the Medicare rebates which DVA is tied to are so out of touch now that many veterans in many cities around Australia are getting rejected by surgeons and physicians and GPs, which is which is heartbreaking.
“So that wasn’t addressed in this, and it really should have been”, but the 30% increase to payments for producing assessment reports for veterans’ claims was “welcomed and appropriate”, he said.
In addition to psychedelic and cannabis therapies, an ABC story published this morning noted that yoga, surf therapy, cooking lessons and short education courses would be available to veterans under this funding.
Professor Clements said some elements were a surprise; others not.
“We already had been funding cannabis for pain conditions, not for mental health conditions. We already knew that there was going to be probable funding for the psilocybin and psychedelic therapy in very specific and limited cases.”
There was already funding for novel ways for people to reintegrate and get mental health treatment, he said.
“I’ve had patients who have had equine therapy with their horses and music therapy. And they’ve been funding things like training and re-skilling. So I actually do think they’ve had a relatively flexible approach to approving things, which is good, because everybody’s different. So a lot of this was sort of already happening in that particular announcement,” he said.
Professor Clements said he had seen improvement and growth in support for veterans over the last 10 years.
“Year on year, I have seen improvements in the speed, in the handling, in the personal nature of DVA’s [handling of] claims,” he told TMR.
“When I was when I discharged and transferred to reserves back in 2015 it was just sort of a goodbye and a foot up the bum.
“There was nothing that really happened. There was no DVA white card. There was no real DVA service. I wasn’t aware of my entitlements. Even as a doctor, I wasn’t aware of my entitlements. Whereas now we’ve got a lot more information out there, and people are getting a lot more support.”
The changes clarified today were part of a big year for veterans’ affairs, said Professor Clements, which included the harmonisation of legislation that governed compensation and rehabilitation for veterans, meaning that from 1 July this year all claims would be determined under a single act.
“If you came to me with a knee injury that you think was attributed to your service, depending on when that knee injury occurred, whether it was in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s you would have a different legal act to assess you under,” he said.
“And so veterans with the same injury were having different outcomes because of different acts. What they’re doing now is … a good step.”
The $203 million earmarked by the department for uncovering fraudulent providers of veterans’ services was “strongly welcomed” by Professor Clements, who said that similarly to the PSR, the DVA had a role in preventing fraud in this area of practice.
“Most GPs and doctors and health providers practice honourably and legally. And we actually welcome oversight, because we know we’re doing the right thing,” he said.
“I am aware of some of my veterans that have been targeted by some of these organisations seeking to maximise their own profit by manipulating the system. I’ve certainly had veterans come to me with a very long list of conditions that they’ve claimed through these providers that don’t really fit the person that’s sitting in front of me. And so we know that these things do occur, and sadly there’s cash in there.”
