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29 Jul 2013
The Osteopathy Board of Australia has announced the fees for osteopaths for 2013/14.
The national fee has been set at $516. It will apply from 1 August 2013 for all practitioners in Australia, except those with a principal place of practice in NSW. The fees for NSW practitioners (see note) will apply from 1 September 2013.
Board Chair, Dr Robert Fendall, said that the Board limited increasing the fee to 2.4%, which is under the national consumer price index (CPI), to allow the Board to continue its work regulating the profession while not putting undue financial pressure on practitioners.
‘The guiding principles of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme include that it should operate in an efficient, effective and fair way, and that the fees should be reasonable’, Dr Fendall said.
‘The National Board set the fee at a level that will allow it to fulfil its regulatory obligations, while continuing its focus on being prudent and financially responsible’, he said.
The National Boards in the National Scheme have seen an increase in notifications (complaints) over the past year. As the number, complexity and cost of these cases can’t be accurately forecast, the Boards will continue to keep fees under close review to ensure careful financial management.
A fee schedule, including the fee arrangements for practitioners whose principal place of practice is NSW, will be published on the National Board’s website. Any variation to the fees payable by NSW practitioners will be announced by the Health Professional Councils Authority in NSW.
More detailed information about the Board’s financial operations will be outlined in the Health Profession Agreement between the Board and AHPRA, which will be published on the website soon. This agreement sets out the services AHPRA will provide to support the Board to regulate osteopathy.
The regulation of osteopathy is funded solely by registrant fees and there is no cross subsidisation between professions that are regulated in the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme.
NSW is a co-regulatory jurisdiction within the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (National Scheme) – so the Health Professional Councils in New South Wales and the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) work in tandem to assess and manage concerns about health practitioners’ conduct, health and performance.
In all other states and territories, this work is done by the National Boards supported by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA).
A policy directive from the Ministerial Council (November 2009) sets out arrangements for fee setting between NSW and the rest of the National Scheme. Item 3 in the directive states that NSW registrants will not be required to contribute to the costs of running the national complaints scheme and equally non-NSW registrants will not be required to contribute to the cost of running the NSW complaints scheme. Discussions about fees between AHPRA on behalf of the National Boards and their counterparts in NSW (the Health Professional Councils Authority on behalf of the individual health professional councils) have taken place, as they must, in the context of this policy directive.
The calculation of the NSW share of National Scheme costs for registration and accreditation is independently scrutinised.
Quarterly data about the number of practitioners in the National Scheme in each state and territory is published on each National Board website.
In NSW, health practitioners pay an annual registration renewal fee set by their National Boards. The Council for each profession in NSW is responsible for setting the notifications/ complaints element of the registration fee payable by NSW practitioners. The fee NSW practitioners pay is the combined sum of National Scheme costs (for registration and accreditation) and the fee set by the NSW Health Professional Councils for the notification/ complaints component. The NSW government contributes in NSW through funding for the Health Care Complaints Commission. In 2013, the National Scheme component of the national fee increased by less than the CPI of 2.5%. The costs of the notifications/complaint component for osteopathy and podiatry have increased, so the fee payable by NSW practitioners is above the national fee.
Further information on the NSW complaints component of the registration fee is available on the Osteopathy Council of NSW website and the Podiatry Council of NSW website.
Download a PDF of this Media release - 29 July 2013 (112 KB,PDF).