ZAIDA GLIBANOVIC
By ZAIDA GLIBANOVIC
DOCTORS will have three times as many reasons to bulk-bill families with young children, pensioners and concession cardholders under the new Federal Budget proposal to boost healthcare accessibility. On Budget night last Tuesday, May 9, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced a $5.7 billion boost to Medicare spending. Around $3.5 billion of that is going towards funding more bulk billing or free GP visits. Fewer than 65 per cent of Australians now have all their GP appointments bulk-billed; the average out-of-pocket fee is $42.44 across Australia. Why? The budget’s primary care spending would quadruple the bulk billing incentive, boosting bulk billing for disadvantaged groups. Furthermore, the MBS reimbursement for consultations lasting more than 60 minutes would be increased, better-paying GPs for delivering high-quality treatment to patients with complicated needs. Catholic Health Australia, Australia’s biggest non-government provider grouping of health care services, has welcomed the Federal Budget’s inclusion of a $5.7 billion funding increase for Medicare. CHA’s Director of Health Policy, Caitlin O’Dea, said the investment would encourage high-quality care for patients with complex needs through longer GP consultations. “This much-needed boost to Medicare funding and primary care will directly benefit the most vulnerable patients in our communities, including the elderly, those with chronic illnesses, and people with disabilities,” Ms O’Dea said. “The extended GP consultations will allow for more comprehensive and personalised care, improving health outcomes for patients with complex needs.” The Australian government has also invested $445.1 million over five years to strengthen the Workforce Incentive Program-Practice Stream, which will assist practices in developing multidisciplinary teams and hiring additional health professionals. “This funding boost not only benefits patients, it also supports GPs and other healthcare professionals by offering them more resources to provide high-quality care,” Ms O’Dea said. We are confident this change will contribute to Australia’s more sustainable and effective healthcare system.” Dr Kingsley Rajasingham from Central Gippsland Family Practice in Moe has worked as a GP for 27 years. Dr Kingsley said the budget announcements were a great start for local health outcomes. “It’s a great start, but it was long-awaited; you might have known that,” he said. “A lot of the clinics have been private billing a lot of the pensioners, healthcare card owners and under 16s, but we are one of the few here in Moe that is still bulk billing even when the incentive was not that high,” Dr Kingsley said. “This will really boost us; the cost of running a clinic has gone up so much, the Medicare rebate has been frozen for the last 15-16 years, so we haven’t had any increase in that, so it will boost us and I’m quite pleased this will kick start the healthcare system. “Face to face, they’re bringing in a very long consultant at the moment it’s a 40-minute consult maximum, and apparently they are going to go for an hour consult now look we’d probably rarely will need that but no GPs are taking over the role of counselling as the cost of seeing a psychologist is so high … there will be some patients that need that hour consultation. “We’d probably be able to attract new doctors and that has been a problem, as I’ve mentioned I’ve been here 20 years and we haven’t been able to attract any younger generation doctors that would come and settle in the country and hopefully this incentive will bring them. “This will put less pressure on us and we can spend more time with patients dealing with more chronic illnesses that we haven’t had that much time with lately because we’ve been doing mainly quick consults. “If we had more doctors and more appointments here there will be fewer patients going into hospitals because hospitals are choc-a-block with patients going in because they can’t find a GP appointment.” The Budget’s developments follows the government’s commitment to cut the price of 320 popular medications in half for millions of Australians by increasing the amount of medicine they may get from one to two months’ supply. The Federal Budget sees the biggest cash injections into the universal healthcare system in 30 years.
