As of January 1, safety net caps will be placed on obstetric services in a bid to save the Federal Government millions of dollars a year.

The Government announced earlier this year it was examining ways to slash the cost to taxpayers of the Medicare safety net introduced by the previous Coalition government in 2004.

Under the scheme, patients can claim back 80 per cent of out-of-pocket medical costs once a

threshold is reached of $555.70 for concession or family tax benefit A recipients and $1111.60 for others. In-hospital costs are not claimable.

The Government claimed the cost of funding the Medicare safety net had blown out because doctors in some specialties, such as obstetrics, IVF and vascular surgery, were overcharging for services.

The Government quoted a study undertaken by the Centre for Health, Economics Research and Evaluation based at UTS which found IVF specialists, in particular, had increased their fees by 300 per cent since the safety net was introduced - a claim doctors have denied.

St George IVF specialist and obstetrician Michael Chapman said the IVF Directors Group calculated doctors had increased their fees about 30 per cent in the past five years, which was in line with inflation on medical services.

Professor Chapman said the data used by the UTS was based on Medicare item numbers and did not take into account that IVF specialists changed the way patients were billed so they could take full advantage of the safety net.

The Government's newly announced safety net limits for IVF will increase the out-of-pocket expense to patients.

Professor Chapman said a patient would be between $200 and $300 worse off per cycle for the first two cycles, with the out-of-pocket gap then increasing by about $600 for every subsequent cycle. He estimated the average couple at his Kogarah IVF clinic who underwent several cycles per year would be up to $2000 worse off.