Value GP care: Fixing long consults and keeping pricing honest

The latest patient Medicare rebate indexation of just 2.6% once again fails to reflect the true cost of healthcare and leaves patients out of pocket or forces clinics to unceremoniously close.

Remember, rebates are for the patient, who pay premiums through the Medicare levy. But the Government has rather successfully positioned it as how GPs get paid by waving Medicare cards at every media opportunity.

The rebate + incentive model is needlessly taking patients and clinics backwards.

Ramya has a proven record of shaping the case for longer consultations

The CPI increase across wages, technology (of which more is required for Benefits assignment compliance) and consumables is not comparable to the headline rebate indexation increase and your margins are getting finer.

Remember, the minister signed off on a 4.41% hike to private insurance, which the patient pays!

Importantly, I do not believe the future of general practice lies in increasing government control over how GPs practice medicine. Our profession must remain clinically independent, locally responsive, and led by the needs of patients not by centrally directed models of care.

That means fighting for:
• Medicare rebates that reflect the real cost of care – with a focus on increasing patient medicare rebates for long consultations
• Proper support for longer and more complex consultations
• An independent Medicare pricing authority
• Protection of GP clinical and business autonomy
• Investment in continuity of care, not further fragmentation of the system

I will continue to push back strongly against policies that undermine the sustainability of general practice.