00:00 We're talking about the bulk billing incentive that GPs get when they bulk bill a patient
00:07 and as you mentioned those categories of children under 16, pensioners and concession card holders.
00:14 So that incentive will now triple.
00:17 The government expects that more than 11 million Australians fall into those categories and
00:22 by increasing this incentive for doctors, it will encourage more of them to offer bulk
00:29 billing and that will take pressure off our overstretched hospital system.
00:34 So we know that bulk billing in clinics around the country has been declining.
00:39 One online health directory estimates just 35% of clinics offer bulk billing.
00:46 Health Minister Mark Butler was addressing this on News Breakfast this morning.
00:50 Take a listen.
00:51 The Medicaid rebate was frozen for six or seven years last decade.
00:56 We then had the impact of COVID and then we've had the impact of the global cost of living
01:00 shock.
01:01 So general practice really has been in a very parlous state and that's translated into
01:05 a sharp reduction in bulk billing rates.
01:07 We're confident this will start to change.
01:10 Practice after practice have been telling me and my colleagues that if they have moved
01:15 away from bulk billing, particularly kids and pensioners, they're going to return to
01:19 bulk billing.
01:20 Now the reason that some general practitioners have turned away from bulk billing is because
01:26 it's costing GPs more to see patients and that's because of things like increased rent
01:31 and medical supplies and electricity costs and that sort of thing.
01:36 But as you could hear there from Mark Butler, the government is hoping these increased incentives
01:41 will help to turn that around.
01:42 We've heard from the Australian Medical Association.
01:45 They have welcomed the changes.
01:47 They said that these increased incentives should help practitioners to care for those
01:52 vulnerable patients and or rather bulk bill those vulnerable patients.
01:56 So the incentives, as we have mentioned, are tripling in metro areas.
02:00 They're going from around $6.85 to just above $20 and then that increases in very remote
02:08 parts of the country from around $13 to nearly $40.
02:14 But some doctors have previously pointed out when we're talking about these metropolitan
02:19 incentives that the gap that a patient would usually pay is around $40.
02:24 So the $20 doesn't quite make that up while it does make a difference but doesn't quite
02:30 go the full way.
02:31 So some doctors have pointed out that there is still that financial hit for practices
02:37 which some might not be able to cover.
02:39 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Comments