Logan GPs are struggling to keep up with increasing pressures to provide individualised, whole-person care — a trend likely to worsen, unless drastic public policy change affects the Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS).
Last month, MyCity Logan revealed that Australia’s general practice speciality is dwindling in uptake, with only 15% of new doctors training to become GPs nationally.
Similarly, many GPs are choosing to leave their speciality altogether.
GPs across Logan are continuing to struggle to keep up with increasingly complex caseloads, including surges in chronic disease and mental health conditions.
A dire set of circumstances intensified by Covid-19.
As the overall cost of living continues to rise, Logan GPs are increasingly struggling to provide high volume, high quality health care to our community.
Australia’s system of universal health coverage, Medicare, provides various health and hospital services at low or no cost to Australians, and to some overseas visitors.
While the in-principle policy intent of Medicare is accessible and equitable health care, its practical application varies.
For Logan GPs striving to provide best practice frontline health care services, their continued capacity to care for our community is increasingly hamstrung by MBS indexation.
Dr Maria Boutlon, AMA Queensland President, told MyCity Logan that “GPs can no longer afford to bulk bill”.
“We are seeing practices close every day because of the rising cost of running a business.”
According to Dr Boulton, when Medicare “was introduced in 1976, the rebate for a standard GP consult was $8.20 and the median house price in Brisbane was $26,00.”
“Today, the rebate is $39.75 and the median house price is $880,000.”
Patients and health professionals continue to bear the brunt of poor indexation, according Dr Boulton, describing Medicare rebates as “woefully low”, explaining that rebates “have gone nowhere near keeping up with inflation for decades, let alone the cost of providing modern healthcare.”
Second and third-order impacts of poor indexation may put our community’s most vulnerable at risk — including those living with disabilities, mental health conditions and chronic disease.
And this concerning trend is likely to continue — unless drastic policy reform is affected.
Dr Boutlon told MyCity Logan that “the current Medicare system doesn’t recognise that patients need long medicine. It rewards short consultations, not holistic care.”
Describing the current Medicare system as “broken”, Dr Boulton says that GPs are increasingly managing complex and large caseloads, adding that “Medicare rebates patients for longer consultations required for mental health issues and chronic disease at the same level as short consultations.”
