Laverty offer iGeneScreen™ testing

Laverty Pathology are pleased to offer women access to an exciting innovation in pregnancy care. The iGeneScreen™ Non-Invasive Foetal Screening test is now availabe.

iGeneScreen™ – For Patients

• Make an appointment with your Specialist O&G, Fertility, Ultrasonologist or other doctor familiar with this test.
• Discuss the iGeneScreen™ test with your Doctor and fill out the request and consent forms.
• The test can be performed from when you are 12 weeks pregnant.
• Make sure that you understand the test and all your queries have been answered.
• Your doctor will inform you of the nearest Laverty Collection Centre designated to collect this specific test.
• Please note: Tests can be collected from Monday to Thursday until Midday ONLY and all collections must be pre booked.
  Please contact Collections on (02) 9005 7000.
• The result of your test will be sent directly to your requesting Doctor within approximately 2 weeks.
• The cost of the test is $1,200.00* and there is no Medicare rebate available. The cost is payable by credit card at the time of your pathology collection. Personal cheques are not accepted.

To download a patient information brochure click here.

iGeneScreen™ – For Doctors

Click here to download an iGeneScreen™ Doctor Information Sheet

Click here to download an iGeneScreen™ Request and Informed Consent Form.

If you would like to be added to the list of Doctors providing this test through Laverty Pathology, please email our marketing department by clicking here  and provide us with your name, practice name, address and phone number and we will include you on the next list update.

iGeneScreen™ is an INEX trademark for the non-invasive prenatal screening test developed by BGI.
Innovations Exchange (INEX) is a leading women’s health molecular diagnostic company focused on the research and development of innovative technology for the advancement of women’s, maternal and fetal health. http://www.inex.sg/

BGI is the world’s largest sequencing and bioinformatics institute for the advancement of genomics research and technology. www.genomics.cn/en

Caps on GP payments bad for patients

THE coalition and the Greens fear some Australians will be priced out of basic health care under reported changes to Medicare service payments.

The Gillard government is tipped to place an indexation freeze on what it pays doctors under a savings measure in Tuesday’s federal budget.

General practitioners now receive a government co-contribution of $36 a visit for each patient.

The $1.5 billion in savings will be used to help fund the DisabilityCare program.

“What that means is fewer GPs will bulk bill and consumers will have to foot the cost,” Australian Greens health spokesman Richard Di Natale told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.

“People who can’t afford it are effectively priced out of health care.”

Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton says doctors are unlikely to absorb the extra costs and will instead pass these on to patients.

“At a time when we want to keep people out of expensive tertiary hospital settings and provide good primary care arrangements for them, the government’s going to make it harder to get in and see doctors,” he said.

“If these costs are passed onto patients, they’ll be passed on through higher out-of-pocket expenses.”

Asked about the issue on Tuesday, Treasurer Wayne Swan declined to comment, saying only that one media report was inaccurate.