IVD Australia calls for extention of point-of-care testing

In its submission to the Department of Health and Ageing final discussion paper on the review of pathology funding, IVD Australia, the industry association that represents sponsors and manufacturers of in vitro diagnostics (IVDs), called on the department to look at ways of extending point-of-care testing (PoCT).

Tests such as blood glucose and HbA1c testing for diabetes as well as liver function tests, and cholesterol and lipid disorder tests for heart conditions are now available on instruments that allow performance in GP surgeries and other primary healthcare situations.

IVD Australia CEO Dr Peter Harman said that “PoCT assists in containing the growth of overall healthcare costs, and provides patients with timely and relevant results when visiting their GP. Australia is well behind the rest of the developed world in the adoption of PoCT. Tests such as INR for coagulation are routinely used in Europe and the USA in GP practices. This lack of availability represents a major disservice to the Australian health consumer.”

IVD Australia supports a number of initiatives that were proposed by the department in the final discussion paper. These include removal of the episode cone for private pathology tests which restricts providers to claiming only the three most expensive items on a patient’s pathology request.

“The government has no idea on exactly how many pathology tests are requested each year as many items are coned out and not recorded,” said Dr Harman. Diabetes, for example, is one of the government’s major chronic disease targets yet the department’s own estimates have concluded that over 80% of HbA1C requests are never recorded.

“It’s crazy that we do not know how many tests are conducted to determine if patients have diabetes because with coning most of the tests are not counted. If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

IVD Australia also requested the Department to broaden the discussion on the business of pathology.

“The department has traditionally negotiated with the RCPA and the private and public pathology providers,” said Dr Harman. “However, pathology reagents and instrumentation tests supplied principally by IVD Australia members comprise over 25% of the costs of pathology laboratories. Much of the containment in the cost of pathology testing over the past 20 years has derived from the advances in automation and test technology provided to laboratories by IVD suppliers. In this context we believe it is absolutely essential that IVD Australia be included by the department whenever and wherever pathology issues are discussed.”