Medical Bodies Respond to Medicare Rebate Changes

Changes to the Medicare rebate, which come into effect on January 19, could see Australia face a crisis similar to that gripping the British health system, according to AMA vice president Dr Stephen Parnis.
Dr Parnis said thousands of patients in Britain are being forced to wait up to 12 hours for emergency care and hospitals are urging people with non-life threatening illnesses to stay away. Australians could experience the same "unless the Federal Government reverses course and ends its attack on general practice".
The changes, unveiled two weeks before Christmas, include a $20 cut to the Medicare rebate for GP Level B consultations lasting less than 10 minutes, from $37.05 to $16.95.
In addition, the Government plans a further $5 cut to GP rebates from 1 July, on top of a near-six year freeze on Medicare rebate indexation.
“If people can’t get in to see their GP, they will often end up at hospital, increasing to the pressure on already-strained emergency departments and greatly adding to the Government’s health bill,” Dr Parnis said.
“As the UK experience shows, when governments cut investment in primary health care, it means more people end up going to hospital, they are sicker, and they are much more expensive to treat,” he said. “We must not go down this path.”
National President of the Doctors Reform Society (DRS) Dr Con Costa says the Medicare changes are seeing doctors threatening to walk about from bulk billing.
"We estimate patient out of pocket cost for seeing a GP for a six to 10 minute consultation (which is often the most common consultation time spent with the GP) - which is privately billed at $75 if doctor does not bulk bill, will rise to around $60! "Doctors are now worried that they cant afford to keep bulk billing for a six to 10 minute consultation and many of our patients will not be able to afford the private charges - and that some will simply go without and could even die because of loss of access to bulk billing.
"It is folly to keep people away from the low cost end of the health system, and will make the system less sustainable, said Dr Costa.
"We call on the new Health Minister to cancel her holiday and act before Medicare is destroyed. "The DRS also calls on the new Health Minister to show evidence that the changes will not lead to widespread loss of bulk billing and drive more people to access GP type care inappropriately - from the ED of public hospitals or, worse still, simply go without."