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21 Sep 2022
The Optometry Board of Australia and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) have announced the annual registration fees for optometrists for 2022/23.
The registration fee for optometrists is set at $337, an increase limited to indexation.
This will cover the registration period from 1 December 2022 to 30 November 2023.
Optometry Board Chair Judith Hannan says the Board, which operates on a cost-recovery model, is committed to keeping fees as low as possible.
‘The Board strives to keep fees low while ensuring they are set at a rate that allows us to realise our vision and mission of keeping the public safe and retaining the community’s confidence and trust in optometrists,’ Mrs Hannan said.
Practitioner registration fees fund the work of Ahpra and the National Boards to keep the public safe by:
The National Boards work closely with Ahpra to keep fees as low as possible while continuing to meet regulatory obligations and the expectations of the public and practitioners.
In 2022/23 Ahpra and National Boards are introducing a new model for allocating costs for each Board which considers the complexity, volume, and time to manage the regulatory activity for each profession, together with the costs of shared services across the professions. The new model reflects access to more detailed data and is designed to ensure costs for regulating each profession are appropriately recovered, target equity levels are maintained, and the risk of cross-subsidisation minimised.
The new cost allocation model will also have an impact on the costs allocated to NSW practitioners for the registration and accreditation component of their registration fees.
More information on the NSW component is available at New cost allocation model and NSW fees.
In NSW, complaints (notifications) about the conduct, health or performance of NSW practitioners are managed by the Health Care Complaints Commission, the Health Professional Councils Authority (HPCA) and the state-based councils for each health profession. Ahpra’s primary role, in relation to notifications in NSW is to update the national register if changes are made to a practitioner’s registration. As such, costs for notifications managed in NSW by the state-based councils and the HPCA are calculated by the HPCA.
In Queensland, all notifications and concerns are directed to the Office of the Health Ombudsman (OHO), which shares this information with Ahpra and the National Boards. Each notification or concern raised is reviewed by the OHO and Ahpra at the same time and a joint decision is made on which organisation will manage the matter. The Queensland Health Minister determines the contribution of practitioners’ fees to be paid to the OHO. This contribution recognises the OHO management of issues related to the health, performance or conduct of Queensland practitioners, and reflects the reasonable costs of what Ahpra and the National Boards would have done if the OHO didn’t exist.