You could almost hear the health minister doing a happy dance as he did the rounds of the media.
Federal health minister Mark Butler was doing the rounds of the media today, spruiking new Medicare statistics revealed in Senate estimates earlier this week showing bulk-billing rates rose significantly in the first month of the new practice incentive payment.
As reported by HSD yesterday, the bulk-billing rate for November rose to 81.2% from 77.7% before the PIP came in.
There were 10.8 million bulk-billing claims in November, compared with 7 million in October.
“I’m very happy,” said Mr Butler on 2RM this morning.
“And four million Australians who didn’t have to pay for their visit to their local GP but would’ve the previous month, they’ll be happy as well.
“[It’s] certainly an indication, I think, that we’ve got this policy right.”
By 30 November, according to DoHDA officials, 2902 GP clinics had registered to shift to full bulk billing to qualify for the payment.
Of those, 1675 (58%) were already fully bulk billing before signing up, 1092 were mixed billing and 135 were entirely new to My Medicare “and didn’t have established billing information”.
“I think there will be waves of practices starting to decide to go to full bulk billing,” said Mr Butler.
“The first wave, though, is very big. We’re now up to almost 3000 general practices across the country bulk billing 100% of their patients.
“They’re getting good income to do that. We really have made it worth their while. Obviously, it’s better for patients, but it’s also better for the GPs themselves and for the practice overall.”
The RACGP was cautious in its response.
“We know the new incentives will increase support for many GPs and their patients, particularly for practices universally bulk-billing and those in regional and rural Australia where the incentives are greatest,” said a college spokesperson.
“But as the DoHDA’s own modelling shows they won’t work for all practices.”
Mr Butler was also on the warpath about ever-increasing specialist fees.
“What we’re finding in some areas is specialist fees are completely out of control,” Mark Butler told 2RM.
“I’ve been up front with doctors’ groups – from my point of view, every option is on the table, we cannot continue in the direction we’re going right now.
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“It’s not only a huge hit to household budgets, but we know that more and more Australians are choosing not to access the care that they need to because of cost.”
Other options to “potentially control fees” are being explored by the government.
The “civil conscription” clause of the Constitution Act has been raised as a limitation when it comes to how much the government can push for how doctors manage their fees.
Section 51 xxiiiA of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act states that the government does have the power to make laws on medical and dental services “but not so as to authorise any form of civil conscription”.
“We’re looking at that because traditionally what we’ve done, there are some restrictions in the Constitution on what we can do, what we can force doctors to do,” Mr Butler told ABC Melbourne Radio today.
“I’m looking at these options very carefully because traditionally, doctors have been allowed to charge a modest fee on top of the Medicare rebate, but it’s gone well beyond that in some areas.”
The AMA has argued that a neglected Medicare has contributed to this inconsistent pricing for specialist fees and that addressing this will in turn assist with patient affordability.
“Medicare, which greatly underpins private pricing, has been neglected for decades,” AMA president Dr Danielle McMullen told HSD.
“The Medicare Benefits Schedule has been poorly indexed and was even frozen for several years from 2013.”
“We recognise that healthcare is not immune to the affordability challenges affecting so many aspects of our country.
“To address this properly, we must invest in Medicare and bring rebates into line with the health needs of Australians today.”