Improvements have recently been made to the Patient Assistance Transport Scheme (PATS), which came into effect on 1 November 2020, and are designed to make PATS more flexible and accessible for country people.

Introduced in response to community feedback and representations from country Members of Parliament, the improvements will see:

• Subsidies available for approved escorts to travel separately when the patient has been transferred by retrieval in an emergency.
• An expansion of the eligibility criteria to include Airbnb and equivalent accommodation options.
• The calculation of fuel subsidies to the actual treatment location.
• Additional subsidies for travel to an airport for those patients who are medically approved to travel by air and who need to drive more than 100 kilometres to reach their nearest airport.
• The ability for escorts to work interstate and remain eligible for an accommodation subsidy when supporting a patient who has had to travel due to services not being available in South Australia.

For more information or to view the updated PATS guidelines Click Here