Should there be an MBS item number for advance care planning?

Pereira-Salgado, Amanda; Watts, Jennifer J

doi:10.5694/mja16.01449

Topics

Advance care planning (ACP) promotes conversations about future health care, in case a person should lose capacity for decision making. Advance care directives (ACDs) provide written documentation of these conversations. Yet, although the Australian Medical Association advocates ACP within routine clinical practice,1 ACD completion rates remain low.2

1 Cabrini Centre for Nursing Research, Cabrini Institute, Melbourne, VIC
2 Centre for Population Health Research, Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC

Correspondence: apereira-salgado@cabrini.com.au

Competing interests:

No relevant disclosures.

1. Australian Medical Association. Position Statement on End of Life Care and Advance Care Planning 2014. Canberra: AMA; 2014. https://ama.com.au/position-statement/end-life-care-and-advance-care-planning-2014 (accessed Feb 2017).
2. Mills A, Walker A, Levinson M, et al. Resuscitation orders in acute hospitals: a point prevalence study. Australas J Ageing 2017; 36: 32-37.
3. De Vleminck A, Houttekier D, Pardon K, et al. Barriers and facilitators for general practitioners to engage in advance care planning: a systematic review. Scandinavian journal of primary health care 2013; 31: 215-226.
4. Legarde M. Provider payments. In: Guinness L, Wiseman V, editors. Introduction to health economics. 2nd ed. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Open University Press, 2011.
5. Folland S, Goodman AC, Stano M. The economics of health and health care. 7th ed. New York: Routledge, 2016.

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