RACGP, AMA speak out on bulk-billing

This makes interesting reading and is all over the media in Melbourne and Sydney. It echoes exactly what IWC is saying.

Doctor’s surgeries are reportedly turning away mental health patients and children because stagnating Medicare rebates do not cover the cost of complex consultations. Instead, the system perversely encourages GPs to churn through 10 patients an hour, says Dr Bastian Seidel, head of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP).

AMA president Dr Tony Bartone said it was not a case of doctors crying poor and that if Medicare rates had kept up with the consumer price index, they would be more than double the current rate. Read more at the Sunday Morning Herald

You also can hear more from 3AW breakfast.

IWC is committed to delivering quality care for our patients/clients, and will not compromise on that. IWC operates in a region in which, according to the government’s own SEIFA social index, 82.6% of the population is very Disadvantaged or Disadvantaged. Quick-turnaround GP services are not suitable or appropriate for our patients/clients, more than 85% of whom have chronic diseases and complex conditions.