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Natural therapies consumers could pay more out of pocket from April 1st, under new legislation that will prohibit private health funds from offering rebates on practices like yoga, naturopathy, homeopathy and pilates.
The change comes off the back of a controversial 2015 Federal government review that found there was insufficient evidence to prove that sixteen natural therapies actually work.
There is "no good evidence, and it's unlikely that there will be," said Dr Ken Harvey, who was on the review panel. He says they examined the "top level of evidence" in systematic reviews, and found very little info to support modalities like homeopathy.
"We would like (consumers) to understand the limitations of the evidence supporting these particular therapies," he told The Feed.
Source: The Feed
But some experts and health workers say the review process was flawed.
Associate Professor Jon Wardle, who conducts research into complementary therapies at the UTS Faculty of Health, has called the review "simplistic" and argued that it's already outdated.
According to Wardle, the panel "relied on reviews that had been published in journals previously", missing a number of independent studies. And, it "didn't look beyond the English language", even for therapies like yoga, tai chi and shiatsu.
Wardle says that it can be difficult to get support for large-scale, high quality clinical trials on complementary therapies.
It's much harder to fund research into what we'd probably term as traditional therapies...than it is in new pharmaceuticals that you can patent or monetize more effectively.
Calls for 'open minds'
The removal of the rebate has some practitioners worried. Therapeutic yoga teacher, Nikola Ellis, sees clients with quite serious conditions.
"People come for anxiety and depression on the one hand, and chronic pain conditions like cancer and autoimmune diseases on the other," she said.
Ellis has run programs with the Cancer Council of NSW, and for young people with eating disorders at Westmead Children's Hospital. Although the research is in its infancy, she believes there is good evidence to show yoga's positive impact on mental health, and in pain management for cancer sufferers.
She says the removal of the health fund rebate will mean some will miss out on the benefits of yoga.
"People will start to make the decision maybe to just not take up the exercise, maybe to stay home and not do it because it's going to cost them too much money now".
Homeopath Gerry Dendrinos, who is heading up a campaign called Your Health Your Choice, wants the government to keep an open mind.
Homeopath Gerry Dendrinos wants the government to keep an open mind. Source: The Feed
Why not allow people to have the freedom of choice to access those therapies if they find them useful?
"Why not allow the health insurance industry to rebate them if they want?"
Starting next year, the Department of Health says it will assess the impact of the private health insurance reforms on consumers.
This will include examining "any additional high quality evidence that has become available since the 2015 review of natural therapies".
