Reducing Covid-19 isolation is complex, says Healius as pathology group’s sick days double

The pathology group, which has made millions from subsidised testing, says removing a requirement to isolate could exacerbate workplace absenteeism.

Healius chief executive Malcolm Parmenter. Picture: Hollie Adams

Mandatory Covid-19 isolation periods keep people unnecessarily locked up at home but scrapping the measure may lead to more absenteeism, the chief executive of pathology group Healius says.

Malcolm Parmenter says a push from the Health Services Union to slash isolation periods was a “complex decision”.

Pandemic-related absenteeism has disrupted all sectors of the economy with almost six million Covid-19 infections in Australia since March, exacerbating grocery price rises and delaying major projects.

“Staying home when you’re symptomatic is good advice no matter when. The question here is whether it’s mandatory or not,” Dr Parmenter said. “There is still quite a lot of Covid out there and part of what the union is arguing is mandatory isolation has got people who don’t need to be at home, locked up at home; it’s hard to say how much that’s true.

“You‘ve got this balance between the fact of more infectious people being out in the community and then more people getting infected. Then you end up with more people at home. It’s actually a complex decision as to whether mandatory requirements around this are better or not.”

Dr Parmenter said the number of sick days Healius staff were taking had doubled.

“And you get all sorts of things, like we have a day hospital business as well and surgeons or physicians will cancel their list at short notice because they have got Covid. That’s happening throughout the health system where you’re getting that impact on your business,” he said.

“Radiologists can’t work; pathologists the same. So you’re having to flex all the time with that amount of sick leave across the organisation.”

For Healius, it further underscores the need to maintain the current government-funded testing which has delivered the company and its rivals Sonic and Australian Clinical Labs millions of dollars in additional revenue.

In the year to June 30, Healius’s revenue jumped 22.9 per cent to $2.34bn, while net profit soared to $307.9m from $43.7m the previous year.

Dr Parmenter expects Healius to perform between 7000 and 14,000 Covid-19 tests a day in the coming year, depending on when new waves of the virus hit. How much government funding those tests will attract is unknown.

At the start of the pandemic, tests attracted a $30 Medicare subsidy, which rose to as high as $100 a test in recognition of the need for pathology companies to invest increasing capacity.

But before the Omicron variant wave hit earlier this year, the subsidy eased to $85 and analysts predict it could fall to $34, which would put it on par with government-funded influenza testing.

The current rate is set to expire at the end of next month and Dr Parmenter said there was “active dialogue going on between the government and industry about what the fee should be from October 1”. “The positivity rate at the moment is around 12-15 per cent, so it’s still quite high,” he said.

“We are doing fewer Covid tests than what we used to do but a lot of patients are having other respiratory tract virus, particularly through the winter, which can look like Covid as well. So differentiating between those is important as well,” he added. “There has been some additional testing that’s been feeding through the winter. Where we see the fee going forward, we wouldn’t think it’s substantially different from where it is at the moment.”

Healius will pay a dividend of 6c a share on September 21, taking the full-year payout to 16c.

Its shares closed 3.5 per cent higher at $3.83 on Tuesday.