Labor's medicare plan - good policies impaired by doctor shortages and compulsory bulk billing
AMA President, Dr Bill Glasson, said today that Labor's Plan for Improved Access to Medicare Services contains positive and productive initiatives that are undermined by a drive for compulsory bulk billing and a failure to fully recognise the national GP shortage.
Dr Glasson said there is a lot to commend about the Labor policy, which appears a genuine attempt to provide access to after hours GP services for more Australians.
"The AMA welcomes the promise of new money to fund after hours programs and a commitment to work with established services, but we question where the doctors will be found and if the overall funding is enough to sustain the new services over time.
"In order to provide communities with GP care 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there has to be cooperation and consultation with the GPs already working in and around where the new after hours clinics are proposed.
"But for the Labor policies of after hours care, 'hot spot teams' and co-located clinics to become a reality, you need new doctors, and lots of them.
"The doctors are just not out there - and it would be dangerous to take doctors from other areas or other existing services.
"Incentives for GPs to provide after hours services must reflect the true cost of providing the services in genuine 'after hours' hours - which means the current Medicare Benefit Schedule (MBS) patient rebate is grossly inadequate.
"At the same time there must not be disincentives that force existing services to shut down because they cannot compete with new subsidised services.
"For instance, the accreditation measures are heavy-handed and ill-directed.
"Accreditation should be about quality, not bulk billing.
"As it stands, the Labor policy actually devalues and discourages existing services.
"A better approach would be to ensure that any higher incentives to attract new after hours services are extended to retain any existing after hours services in a given area.
"Both the Government and Labor after hours policies are based on the furphy that after hours GP clinics will take pressure off emergency departments in our public hospitals.
"Bed block is the big access problem for patients trying to get into emergency - not busloads of patients rolling up with so-called minor GP-type complaints.
"There is simply no credible evidence that GP patients are clogging up emergency departments.
"On the question of Labor's proposed single national telephone number triage system, the AMA would oppose any moves to replace or compete with existing fully funded local call centres.
"The local regionally-based call centres work effectively, and it would be wrong to take their place or work against them in any way.
"While the AMA has problems with certain elements of the policy - especially doctor supply, the accreditation process and bulk billing - Labor is offering greater access and flexibility to a system under great pressure.
"Overall, Labor's policy is a welcome addition to the election Medicare bidding war - with plenty of big bids yet to come," Dr Glasson said.