Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Georgiou for his question and for providing advance notice of it. The Minister for Health understands that there are increasing requests for expansion of MRI services, and that is why the minister has asked the Department of Health to undertake a review of the distribution and availability of MRI medical eligibility and provide further advice on options to expand the number of MRI licences. Part of this review is to consider increasing access in regional and remote, and within private and public settings.

There are currently 16 Medicare-eligible MRI machines with full eligibility and 16 Medicare-eligible MRI machines with partial eligibility in Western Australia. For the 2016-17 financial year, there were almost 94,000 MRI services provided in Western Australia at a cost to the government of over $36 million.

Expanding access to MRI is not inexpensive, with the average cost in Medicare benefits per fully eligible machine in 2016-17 estimated to be approximately $1.6 million. Senator Georgiou, Minister Hunt would be more than happy to provide an additional briefing on this matter.