There’s been a lot of coverage in the media of late about the current crisis in health care, largely resulting from an outdated Medicare system that has failed to keep up with inflation, rising costs and the changing health care needs of patients.
In this month’s blog, we take a look at the current Medicare situation and the impact it is having on general practices and their patients.
What is Medicare?
Medicare was first introduced in 1984 as a universal health insurance scheme for Australia. It was designed to assist all Australians with the costs of the health care they need, regardless of where they live or their ability to pay.
When you access eligible health services, including a visit to your GP, Medicare provides a rebate to you – the patient – to assist covering the total cost of the health service provided. Medicare does not pay GPs.
Bulk billing is when the doctor or health care provider accepts the Medicare rebate directly for the services provided to patients resulting in no out-of-pocket expense to the patient.
What is the current issue?
When Medicare was first introduced, the rebate provided generally covered the average cost of an appointment with your GP. However, as can be seen in the graph below, the Medicare rebate has not kept up with inflation and the rising costs of providing quality health care to patients over time.
As a result, the current Medicare rebate for GP consultations is far less than the cost of delivering appropriate medical services and falls short of the AMA recommended fee.
GP practices operate as small businesses and need to cover the costs of staff wages, rent, utilities, equipment, insurances, compliance etc. Medicare simply does not cover the cost of running a medical practice.
GPs work as contractors and only receive a percentage of the overall fee charged to patients and don’t get paid any leave entitlements or superannuation. They also have to cover the costs of their own indemnity insurance, as well as medical board and college fees.
The Medicare rebate is currently about half of the actual cost of providing the service and when you are bulk billed, your doctor is effectively subsidising patient care out of their own pocket.
While the original Medicare system may have worked for the 1980’s, a lot has changed in the health care space since then and the system hasn’t kept up with these changes and is no longer fit for purpose.
What are we proposing?
Providing quality and equitable acute and long-term health care remains our primary focus at Illawarra Medical Centre (IMC). IMC has been absorbing the rising out-of-pocket costs of health care for our patients over a number of years now, but that is no longer a sustainable option.
Urgent reform is needed to ensure we can continue to provide the highest standard of appropriate, quality and timely medical care to all of our patients at Illawarra Medical Centre.
Over the coming weeks, we will be introducing a number of changes to our fee structure to ensure we remain a financially viable and sustainable business that can continue to service our slot thailand patients with the quality health care they deserve well into the future.
Keep an eye on our website for further details, as these changes are announced.