Saturday, 12 September 2026
AMH testing surge questioned, SA GP payroll tax checks, Mildura referral failures investigated
- 01
Australian GP requests for AMH tests rose 13-fold
Australian GP requests for anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) tests increased more than 13-fold from 2011 to 2021, despite researchers concluding that the rise did not appear evidence-based. The study analysed records from almost 1.4 million females aged 20–44, finding an almost 20-fold increase in testing among women aged 30–34 and substantial variation between practices. Around 20% of women had a result classified as low, but one-third of those retested after a low result subsequently received a normal result. Lead author Associate Professor Luke Grzeskowiak said AMH can measure ovarian reserve but cannot predict how likely or quickly a healthy woman is to conceive, or how much reproductive time she has left. The researchers linked increased testing to delayed childbearing, greater fertility awareness, social media messaging and commercial promotion.
via RACGP newsGP
- 02
RevenueSA begins payroll tax checks at South Australian GP clinics
RevenueSA is contacting a small number of South Australian GP clinics it believes may have miscalculated deductions under the bulk billing payroll tax exemption. Since July 2024, participating practices have been able to claim a deduction based on the proportion of services bulk billed, applying only to payments to contractor GPs. The RACGP said RevenueSA planned an educational approach without fines and would offer payment plans where practices needed to repay amounts. Clinics that did not participate in the amnesty and exemption schemes are also reportedly facing audits. These audits will test whether practices operating as administrative entities have structures that support treating GPs as tenants rather than contractors.
- 03
Mildura hospital reports 150 untriaged referrals as sentinel events
Mildura Base Public Hospital failed to triage 150 clinical referrals, some for up to 16 months, and reported the failures as sentinel events. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the backlog included patients with cancer symptoms awaiting diagnostic tests and patients requiring treatment for confirmed skin cancers. A patient who died from cancer and another who received a terminal diagnosis were reportedly among those affected, although it remains unclear whether earlier triage could have prevented the death. Safer Care Victoria is investigating the potentially fatal delays at the regional north-west Victorian hospital. The hospital, which relied on paper referrals and manual sorting despite having an IT system, said it had begun moving its specialist clinic referrals to the TrakCare electronic system.
- 04
US Medicare expands TAVR coverage to asymptomatic severe aortic stenosis
US Medicare has expanded coverage for transcatheter aortic valve replacement to patients with severe aortic stenosis who do not have symptoms. The final policy requires evidence development for procedures in asymptomatic patients but ends the equivalent requirement for symptomatic patients. The change followed the FDA’s April 2025 expansion of the indication for Edwards Lifesciences’ Sapien 3 platform, based on the EARLY TAVR study, in which asymptomatic patients fared better with TAVR than with clinical surveillance. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also said it would review TAVR coverage for aortic regurgitation and expects to propose a decision by March 2027.
via MedTech Dive
- 05
ARPA-H awards $62.7 million for heart failure AI program
The US Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health has awarded the first contracts under a four-year, $62.7 million program to develop agentic AI for heart failure care between medical visits. Tempus AI, Updoc and Atman Health will build a patient-facing system designed to support patients autonomously and escalate to their care teams when needed, with an FDA authorisation package due within two years. Stanford University will develop a disease-agnostic supervisory AI system to detect unsafe recommendations and out-of-distribution behaviour. Duke University and Kaiser Permanente will deploy the agents across health systems, rural sites, medical centres and clinics, with a focus on rural and underserved communities. The program will work with the FDA on a regulatory framework for patient-facing clinical AI, while Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory will independently assess technical performance and clinical outcomes.
via MedTech Dive · also covered by Healthcare Dive
- 06
EU committee backs veterinary vaccines and safety label changes
Two veterinary vaccines received positive marketing authorisation opinions: Cirbloc for pigs against porcine circovirus type 2 infection and AviGate S. Typhimurium for healthy chickens. The European Medicines Agency’s veterinary medicines committee also backed expanded target species or indications for several products, including firocoxib in horses and Felpreva for additional tick infestations. It supported product information changes listing seizure with Credelio/AdTab, application-site inflammation with Easotic and gastrointestinal ulceration with Galliprant as very rare adverse events. The committee also opened three-month public consultations on revised guidance covering antimicrobial product information, pharmacovigilance signal management and user safety for veterinary medicines.
MDDR is a news digest for medical professionals. It is not medical advice and should not be relied on for clinical decision-making.