{"id":39520,"date":"2026-06-18T13:15:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T03:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=39520"},"modified":"2026-06-18T13:15:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T03:15:37","slug":"71-7-million-additional-support-for-regional-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/06\/18\/71-7-million-additional-support-for-regional-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"$71.7 million additional support for regional patients"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Minns Labor Government is helping ease cost of living pressures for patients and their families in regional, rural, and remote areas, with a $71.7 million boost in the 2026-27 NSW Budget for the Isolated Patients Travel and Accommodation Assistance Scheme (IPTAAS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">IPTAAS provides financial assistance towards travel and accommodation costs for patients who are required to travel more than 100 kilometres one way, or a total of 200 kilometres a week, for specialised health treatment that is not available locally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Improving access to care for people living in rural, regional and remote NSW remains a priority for the Minns Government. Last year, IPTAAS helped 49,198 patients, an increase of 7,500 compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">IPTAAS has expanded significantly in recent years, with increased investment to support more patients and improvements in processing times and service delivery resulting in faster turnaround for applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The online claiming system has also been streamlined, making it easier for patients to submit claims and receive reimbursements directly into their bank account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reducing the financial burden for country patients to travel for their healthcare is just part of a comprehensive range of measures the Minns Government is embracing to improve access to care in our regional, rural and remote communities, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Delivering more health worker accommodation in the bush;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Doubling rural health worker incentives for the most critical and hard to fill positions to improve recruitment and retention;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Boosting doctors in our regional GP surgeries as well as hospitals through the single employer model; and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Deploying an extra 500 regional paramedics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Minister for Health and Regional Health Ryan Park:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIPTAAS ensures people in regional, rural and remote NSW can access the specialist care they need, no matter where they live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWith cost of living pressures continuing to put pressure on households, this relief is more important than ever. It provides practical financial assistance that makes a real difference for patients and their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe are committed to supporting patients living in regional communities and making sure distance is not a barrier to care, while also helping to ease cost of living pressures for patients and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Minns Labor Government is helping ease cost of living pressures for patients and their families in regional, rural, and remote areas, with a $71.7 million boost in the 2026-27 NSW Budget for the Isolated Patients Travel and Accommodation Assistance Scheme (IPTAAS). IPTAAS provides financial assistance towards travel and accommodation costs for patients who are &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/06\/18\/71-7-million-additional-support-for-regional-patients\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;$71.7 million additional support for regional patients&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39521,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39520\/revisions\/39521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}