Australian Medical Association

AMA President Dr Steven Hambleton said tonight that the government had done the right thing by sparing health from broad funding cuts to provide a budget for tough economic times and to fund a budget surplus.

“Health has generally been sheltered from the budget cuts,” Dr Hambleton said.

The AMA submission to government on Regionally Tailored Primary Health Care Initiatives through Medicare Locals Fund comments on the role of Medicare Locals, the creation of the Medicare Locals National Body and the utilisation of funds set aside for Medicare Locals.  The AMA highlights the need for Medicare Locals to support GPs in caring for patients, for clarity and transparency in how funds are allocated, and stresses that any savings from the consolidation of funding arrangements must be directed towards supporting services for patients. 

Dr Hambleton speaks to ABC News Radio about comments made by the former director of the Professional Services Review Panel Dr Tony Webber saying Medicare costs $3 billion a year and is open to rorts by unethical doctors. In addition Dr Hambleton discusses energy drinks and prescription drugs.

The Government has again failed to increase Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) patient rebates sufficiently to reflect the real cost of providing high quality medical care to the Australian community.

From 1 November, the MBS patient rebate for a standard GP consultation will increase by just 70 cents to $35.60.

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Australia’s peak general practitioner coalition, United General Practice Australia (UGPA), today vowed to intensify its campaign to convince the Government to restore the Medicare patient rebates for GP mental health services that were drastically cut in the May Budget.

At a meeting last night at Parliament House involving UGPA leaders, Mental Health Minister Mark Butler and senior advisers from Health Minister Nicola Roxon’s office, Minister Butler said there was no room for change or negotiation around the Government’s mental health package.

Medicare Locals have the potential to impact on a wide range of health care services.  The AMA believes they should be introduced in a manner consistent with the AMA's overall health vision and which is respectful of the exisitng role of the General Practitioner and other community based specialists.   This position statement includes details of the AMA position on the governance, functionality, accountability, fundholding and boundaries of Medicare Locals.

The AMA submission on Medicare funding for online consultations calls for funding not to be limited to video consultations only, but include telephone calls, emails and other non-video online consultations that are necessary for providing care to patients who are remote to the specialist caring for them.  The submission also says that the MBS items should be drafted broadly to enable treating doctors to use their clinical judgment to determine when an online consultation is clinically relevant for their patient and the clinically appropriate technology to use to provide the service.

The AMA has made a submission to the review of the Medicare provider number legislation. We have called for a number of measures including medical training initiatives; the introduction of a single Medicare provider number for all practice locations; and the grandfathering of pre-1996 non-vocationally registered general practitioners who were accessing GP Medicare rebates prior to 1 November 1996 and have predominantly been in general practice for a minimum of five years since that date.

AMA has supported the need for reform to Australia's health system, particularly the issue of responsibility for public hospitals and the linkages with other parts of the health system such as primary care and aged care.  The Government has said Medicare Locals are the mechanism to improve these linkages.  Our usual preference would be for less bureaucratic mechanisms than are suggested in the discussion paper.  We represent doctors who like to behave in an efficient manner, responsive to the needs of their patients, to be independent and accountable to their patients and free, to the maximum extent possible, of bureaucratic red tape.