Markets 
Before the accident, Kerryn Airs was a woman at the top of her game.
The mother of two was a self-described go-getter, frequent party host and procurement specialist who had been married for three decades.
But it all changed on November 28, 2018, when Airs, driving home from work, saw an eight-year-old girl step into oncoming traffic at an intersection in Melbourne’s east, get hit by a car and die.
Airs rushed to help and called Triple Zero. She later called the girl’s mother to tell her of the accident.
Witnessing the crash deeply traumatised Airs. That night she vomited and barely slept as the sound of the car hitting the girl replayed in her head. She became deeply depressed and suicidal. She was later diagnosed with PTSD. Airs stopped working, her marriage broke down and for a time she lived in her car.
Later that year she submitted a claim for impairment to the Transport Accident Commission, Victoria’s state-owned insurer, which pays for medical care and support after road accidents. The claim was accepted, but Airs said failings by the TAC over the following eight years ultimately compounded her suffering.
In evidence submitted to a parliamentary inquiry designed to improve the scheme, Airs claimed the TAC at times failed to fund her medical treatment and burdened her with a revolving door of case managers. She said this added to her trauma.
“If I had [psychiatry and psychology services] dealt to me back in the early stages, I would not probably be in this position right now. So if anything, the TAC has festered this. By prolonging it, it’s gotten worse,” Airs said.
She was among dozens of road trauma victims who gave evidence to the inquiry, which published its report this week. Many of them contended that while the TAC did fantastic work for the community, its clients sometimes faced a complex web of bureaucracy and significant pushback when seeking compensation.
Medical bodies told the inquiry some specialist doctors would refuse to take on TAC clients because the scheme was notorious for requiring large amounts of unpaid administrative work and not paying market rates for care.
In its report, the inquiry recommended the TAC review how it supports clients with severe injuries, that it include representatives of peak medical bodies in its clinical panel and that it establish an advisory group comprising accident survivors.
The report also found that road accident victims with significant injuries struggled to fully access the scheme and that the TAC’s complex administrative processes could add secondary trauma and undermine recovery.
Libertarian MP David Limbrick, who launched the inquiry, said it highlighted glaring problems with the scheme.
“Accident victims have always just wanted to be heard,” he said. “The establishment of a client advisory group would do a lot to rebuild bridges. There is no reason for TAC to delay implementing this.”
Tamara Tesseyman, a road trauma survivor who testified to the inquiry, said the report acknowledged the harm the TAC had caused some of its clients and provided some strong recommendations for improving the system.
But she said it fell short by not urging the TAC to pay full specialist medical fees that clients needed for recovery. Some medical practitioners, such as physiotherapists and podiatrists, at times reject TAC clients because the scheme won’t fully cover the cost of their services, leaving accident survivors without access to treatment.
Tesseyman said implementing that “would have made a huge difference to us on the ground, pretty much immediately”.
The Victorian president of the Australian Physiotherapy Association, Caitlin Farmer, said the TAC’s below-market-rate payments and significant unpaid administrative work discouraged physios from taking on road trauma survivors.
“There are a lot of physios that feel the pressure to take it on … there are some that choose not to because they don’t want all the associated administrative burden,” she said.
Tesseyman said the TAC should commit to paying market rates for medical specialists, considering the report noted it was in a strong financial position and had paid the state government consecutive billion-dollar dividends.
Budget papers reveal the TAC delivered the government $2.21 billion in dividends over the 2023-24 and 2024-25 financial years, which the inquiry noted was “abnormally large”.
Tesseyman said this money should be paying for client care, not other government services.
“They’re making these big profits, but it’s at the expense of us on the ground,” she said.
Limbrick said he was worried by the government’s “repatriation of billions of dollars paid by motorists in good faith. This money is supposed to be used to help people. Nobody should confuse the TAC with a piggy bank.”
A TAC spokesperson said it appreciated that the parliamentary committee acknowledged the scheme worked well for most clients, but that there was “more to do to better support those with more complex and long-term injuries.
“We are committed to listening, learning and improving, guided by client experience, evidence and processes such as this inquiry as we identify further opportunities to strengthen outcomes for our clients, industry partners and the Victorian community,” the spokesperson said.
“Our core purposes will always be reducing road trauma and supporting people injured and impacted by transport accidents, while remaining financially sustainable to care for Victorians long into the future.”
The TAC told the inquiry 95 per cent of 100,000 treatment requests from its 40,000 clients were approved last year.
Legal groups representing TAC clients who gave evidence to the inquiry said the recommendations would help road accident survivors access care and increase transparency.
“I think the system as a whole is doing a good job,” the chair of the Law Institute of Victoria’s TAC committee, Jeremy King, said. “Is it perfect? No. But is it doing a very good job? Is it very robust? Absolutely.”
The Victorian president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, Megan Caines, said the recommendations would address delays, poor communication and unnecessary bureaucracy, which can create further distress for injured people.
“We are, however, disappointed that the report does not adequately address concerns about the disproportionate use of surveillance in some suspected fraud cases,” she said.
“The report acknowledges that fraud within the TAC scheme is very low, yet it does not address our concerns about the use of heavy-handed surveillance against injured people.”
A Victorian government spokesperson said Labor founded the TAC and would always support Victorians affected by transport accidents.
“We will carefully consider this report and its recommendations and respond in due course,” the spokesperson said.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
Angus Delaney is a state political reporter at The Age. Email him at angus.delaney@theage.com.au or contact him securely on Signal at angusdelaney.31Connect via email.From our partners
Read the full article here
