Australian Medical Association

This page provides answers to questions regularly asked of the AMA.

Fees Gap Chart

Pathology services in Australia are amongst the highest quality and the most accessible in the world. However, Government funding cuts to pathology services have had an impact on the quality, accessibility, affordability and safety of pathology services. Government funding changes can also have a significant impact on the sustainability of the pathology sector including the ability to support ongoing training, research and development.

The AMA submission supports the proposed changes if they make the assessment process more timely, involve input from the relevant craft groups at every stage, and there is transparency of each decision taken during the assessment process. The submission seeks a clear and transparency for eligibility for assessment, and funding for data collection and analysis.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, today challenged the major parties to commit to a serious review of the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) to reflect the comprehensive nature and quality of care that patients receive from their family doctor and to allow new technologies and procedures to be embraced by general practice for the benefit of patients.

Dr Pesce said that the MBS has failed to keep up with the cost of providing GP services and has not allowed family doctors to provide testing or referrals that could improve patient care.

“The recently completed simplification of the MBS did not go far enough,” Dr Pesce said.

“The structure of items needs more work, red tape must be cut, and the MBS should allow family doctors to conduct point-of-care testing (PoCT) in their practices and directly refer patients for MRIs.

MJA media release - Medicare reforms recently introduced by the Federal Government, including changes to Levels B, C and D consultation item descriptors, may not be sufficient to change consultation patterns in general practice to better match health policy objectives, according to research published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Dr Michael Taylor, Research Fellow at the Australian Institute for Primary Care at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and co-authors conducted a retrospective analysis of more than one billion Medicare claims made between 1994 and 2009 for general practice standard consultations, health assessments, care plans and other special MBS items.

They found that the use of Levels C and D (long) consultations increased consistently from 1994 to 2004, but declined dramatically by 2009. This was accompanied by an increase in the use of Level A (short) consultations.

The AMA has provided comments to the Department of Health and Ageing on the Initial Assessment and Quality Framework Appraisal application forms and guidelines and made a submission to the Department's Medical Benefits Review Task Group regarding the MBS Quality Framework discussion paper released on 29 April 2010.

The submissions outline the concerns about the proposed processes for assessment of services for the MBS, and the administrative processes of the MBS Quality Framework.

The AMA has prepared a list of the MBS items and the amount of the cuts to the Medicare rebates that will apply from 1 November 2009.  A template letter is available so that medical practices can inform their patients about the Government's decision to withdraw its support to patients and to obtain informed financial consent.

The Government, as part of the 2007 Election Campaign, made a commitment to reform and simplify the MBS for GPs.  From 1 May 2010, GPs will receive a higher Medicare rebate for spending more time with their patients.  For further information on the simplification and to view the Government's changes to MBS GP items please click here.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that the Government’s promised streamlining of the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) has delivered a number of worthwhile reforms, but has not matched the rhetoric of the Prime Minister’s 2007 election promise to ‘simplify Medicare’.

Dr Pesce said that Australia’s hard working GPs had high hopes that GP consultation items would be comprehensively overhauled and red tape cut to a minimum so they could spend more time with their patients.

“The AMA fully expected the Government to deliver on its promise to simplify Medicare but the results fall short of the expectations of many GPs,” Dr Pesce said.

“We can only hope that this is just the first step in an ongoing reform process.