Government dumps GP co-payment
The plan to charge patients an extra $7 GP fee was yesterday scrapped by the federal government, resulting in no change to bulk billing for pensioners, veterans, residents in aged care and other aged care institutions.
Associate Professor Brian Owler, AMA president, is pleased concession card holders and residents of aged care facilities will not be subject to reduced Medicare rebates for GP services.
However, the government is cutting the Medicare rebate paid to doctors by $5 a visit in a bid to address the “troublesome issue of six minute medicine” and encourage doctors to spend more time with patients from 1 July 2015.
The cut means it will be left up to doctors to decide whether to make up the shortfall by charging what the Government has called an “optional co-payment”.
“In the end, though, this is a question for the doctors, and what we're saying to the doctors is for adults who aren't on concession cards, we don't think it's unreasonable for you to charge a co-payment,” says Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
“And what we want to do by legislation is enable them to directly claim the rebate, provided the co-payment they charge for that particular class of patients is $5 or less,” he says.
The government also announced that to receive the standard rebate, consultations with doctors must be at least 10 minutes and that the level of rebate would be frozen over the forward estimates.
Associate Professor Brian Owler, Australian Medical Association (AMA) president, says the government’s reworked co-payment model is a mixed bag, with welcome exemptions for vulnerable patients but concerns remain about cuts to the Medicare patient rebate.
The AMA has been calling for protection for the poor, the elderly, the chronically ill, and Indigenous Australians – and this has been delivered with the new co-payment model, the association claims.
“The AMA has led the debate on the unfairness of the government’s original co-payment model since Budget night, and the government yesterday addressed a number of our concerns,” Associate Professor Owler says.
“We are pleased that concession card holders, children under 16, and residents of aged care facilities will not be subject to reduced Medicare rebates for general practitioner services,” he says.
The associate remains happy that there will be no changes to Medicare rebates and bulk billing incentives for pathology and diagnostic imaging.
“However, we remain disappointed that rebates for GP services for everyone else will be cut by $5. This comes on top of a freeze on Medicare patient rebates until July 2018. This means that, by 2018, Medicare rebates for many services will have been frozen for almost six years, while inflation continues to rise,” he says.
“At a time when general practice is in need of significant new investment to cope with an ageing population and more people with chronic disease, today’s announcement represents a disinvestment in quality general practice.
“The government claims it wants to ‘incentivise’ quality general practice, but it doesn't want to pay for quality general practice.”
The AMA will examine the finer detail of yesterday's announcement to fully gauge the impact on patients and on medical practices. The AMA Council of General Practice (AMACGP) will discuss the revised co-payment model tonight.
