Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care and for Indigenous Health, Ged Kearney, today announced significant, long-awaited changes to Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items for endorsed midwives providing best-practice continuity of care.
The Government’s $56 million budget measure for new and updated MBS items for midwifery will come into effect from March 1st. Most significantly, midwives are now funded to provide postnatal care for “not more than 8 weeks” post birth; up from six. There are also three new items including for a long antenatal appointment up to 90 minutes, complex care of up to three appointments lasting from 3 hours each that leads to hospital admission and a final 60-minute postnatal appointment to include mental health and domestic violence screenings and a birth debrief.
The MBS changes, will better enable endorsed midwives to work to full scope of practice in primary care, and enable better maternity outcomes for women and families.
Alison Weatherstone, ACM Chief Midwife stated, ‘Midwives, women and families can only benefit from these long sought changes that will reduce the cost and improve access to primary maternity care provided by an endorsed midwife. This is important recognition of the role of the endorsed midwife in primary care and a win for women and families.’
The Australian College of Midwives and maternity consumers have long advocated for these barriers to care to be removed. It is positive to see recognition of the evidence; that midwifery continuity of care improves outcomes, and that the Government has recognised the need for these priorities to be funded.
There are more than 1355 endorsed midwives able to provide primary maternity care in Australia; a figure that has doubled in four years, highlighting the growth in consumer demand for midwifery-led maternity care as well as the appetite from midwives to choose this as a career path.
ACM CEO Helen White said the growth in numbers of midwives attaining endorsement qualifications is a sign that midwives want to work in primary care. “Pregnant women are in general well women and these changes will help fund women to have their care of choice in community based midwifery led care that is evidence based and offers the best outcomes.”
Earlier this week the government also announced $10.5 million over two years to expand the scholarship scheme for postgraduate study for nurses and midwives, to boost numbers of these vital primary care roles even further.
“ACM will continue to work with government to secure funding and legislation to ensure midwives are enabled to work to their full scope of practice and to ensure that all women and families in Australia have access to these models of midwifery led care, close to home,” White concluded.