Against a backdrop of potential Medicare funding cuts for anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) injections, Optometry Australia (OA) has urged the nation’s major political parties to commit to investing AU$1 million over two years in a collaborative-care pilot study to more effectively deploy Australia’s optometry workforce and improve eyecare access.
OA proposes allowing skilled optometrists to collaborate with ophthalmologists to treat patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular oedema (DMO) across two locations, including a remote Indigenous community. “Although these patients require regular treatment, often administered by intravitreal injection, access can be difficult if ophthalmic care is not readily available due to location or cost. It is therefore understandable that there is a 20% drop-out rate for intravitreal injection treatment,” said Murray Smith, OA president.
In Australia there are significant barriers to intravitreal injections, resulting in people missing out on treatments that save their vision, OA optometry development manager Ben Hamlyn told NZ Optics.
“I suspect that similar issues are faced by patients across New Zealand. In Australia, intravitreal injections are delivered almost entirely by ophthalmologists and in areas where there are fewer ophthalmologists there are fewer intravitreal injections taking place. Two of the most profound barriers to intravitreal injections in Australia are access to ophthalmologists and out-of-pocket expenses for the patient when they do have treatment with the ophthalmologist,” said Hamlyn. “The current funding structure in Australia incentivises an inefficient use of ophthalmologists’ time, undertaking tasks that could be safely undertaken by other health professionals.”
