Lutecium

Thank you Laura but I think that what you have attached is just the medicare rebate for the actual administration of lutetium. The cost of lutetium product is not included in this. Please clarify perhaps with an example of ‘Fred the patient’ and his out of pocket expenses. I thought lutetium had to be on the pbs not the mbs for the product to have any funding. The medicare update you provide is very complicated language. As I read it, we don’t need to get our hands on pennies, we need to be collecting gold bullion to pay for treatment. My wife did phone telenursing some time ago. We got no answers to my questions, you also neglect to mention the patent dispute launched by Novartis against a provider of lutetium in Australia. The Novartis product could cost patients $250K, we patients aren’t mushrooms we require honesty. What are PCFA advocacy plans?

For those who are interested, we can confirm that Lutetium therapy is now listed on the Medicare Benefits Schedule and we have provided a link below to the Australian Government’s fact sheet for patients. If you’d like more information about accessing the therapy in your area, please call our Telenursing Team on 1800 22 00 99.

Click here to read the fact sheet.

Back in December 2024 the PCFA announced that due in part to their contributions Lutetium therapy would be on the PBS in July this year. Here we are in July, the medical benefits scheme will fund it’s delivery (press release 13th of June) but the listing on the PBS is not there. That is a bit like offering a diabetic a ‘free’ syringe whilst withholding the insulin! Does anyone including the PCFA have any clues as to what is going on in terms of access to medicine that is proven and essential.

My daughter’s grandmother gifted us $40,*** when she heard I needed this treatment. My PSA was doubling every month, scans showed it had spread to lymph nodes. A specialist picked up a spot in my PSMA scan and ordered more tests. Turns out I had testicular cancer. I had one removed and 20 rounds of chemo. PSA got up to 28, now 0.49

Best of luck with it Stephen. It was recommended to me a while back, but unfortunately a bit out of financial reach.