The Federal Government’s Child Dental Benefit Schedule , or Scheme, (CDBS) provides financial support for basic dental services for children where eligibility criteria is met.
This criteria includes:
- the child is aged between 2 – 17years for at least one day on the calendar year of the dental services provided.
- the child is eligible to receive Medicare
- certain government benefits are received by the family, carer or guardian, e.g. Family Tax Benefit A.
In April 2016 the Federal Government announced it would no longer make CDBS available from 1 July, but after failing to pass legislation to this effect and given the uncertain political climate at the time of the early July Federal election, this benefit scheme continues to be available. We will update this post when more information becomes available.
At Bowman Dental we accept the Child Dental Benefits Schedule if your child is eligible and we welcome you to call us to check your child’s eligibility and to check the balance of funds you have available on your Medicare card for relevant dental services. If your child is eligible and there are funds available we can bulk bill for most general preventative services like check-ups, cleans, x-rays and fissure seals. If your child requires more extensive treatment we may not be able to bulk bill those services for you, in which case if you proceed with them you will need to pay the account and claim back your rebate (if any) from Medicare.
CDBS does not cover orthodontic, cosmetic dental work, mouthguards or dental services provided in a hospital.
Given that the Coalition Federal Government has indicated its strong intention to end this benefit scheme we encourage you to check its status with us prior to booking dental treatment if you wish to claim funds using this scheme, as it may end at any time. We also note that the Government can change which dental services are claimable using the CDBS, so we also encourage to you check if the dental work your child requires is still covered by the scheme.
Some links for more reading:
Eligibiliy criteria for CDBS