services

patient assistance travel scheme

Territorians have always faced particular challenges in accessing specialised medical services due to the remoteness and distribution of our population. Specialisations in medicine and continuing advances in sophisticated equipment and technology have resulted in a trend to centralise some specialised services in major regional centres. The Northern Territory cannot support all specialised services in all health districts and therefore Territorians living in rural and remote communities may need to travel to major hospitals to access specialist medical services, including interstate hospitals.

The legal authority on which DHCS bases the delivery of patient travel assistance programs is the NT Medical Services Act 1982, Section 9.1, 2 & 3. Under the Australian Health Care Agreement the Northern Territory is responsible for ensuring that eligible persons should have equitable access to public hospital services, regardless of their geographical location. (Clause 13 (3))

The Department of Health and Community Services (DHCS) provides a comprehensive Patient Travel Scheme (PTS) program to assist with this requirement.

PTS provides comprehensive assistance to people in the NT requiring emergency and planned specialised health care. DHCS through PTS provides access to emergency care for all people and planned health care to Northern Territory residents. PTS assistance cannot cover all cost for all individuals in all cases.

No set guidelines can hope to address all situations and circumstances. Medical personnel responsible for the administration of the schemes must therefore exercise some amount of decision-making discretion.

All DHCS employees dealing with patient travel are bound by the DHCS Information Privacy Code of Conduct and all information related to Patient Travel Scheme applications, both verbal and written and any related data must be treated confidentially.

This document was last amended in July 2001.

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