00:00The bulk billing rate is essentially the number of GPs who are bulk billing their patients
00:07really.
00:08It's when you see your doctor for free, it's covered entirely by Medicare.
00:12And the rate has stayed essentially, it's stagnated, stayed the same since this time
00:16last year at 77.6%.
00:18Now there's also some other interesting data that's been quietly published today, or rather
00:24last night, showing that for the first time ever the average out of pocket cost per patient
00:30has gone up above $50.
00:32Now the opposition say that this is potentially having a pretty negative impact around the
00:36country.
00:37They say that it speaks to the fact that seeing a GP is too expensive and that not enough
00:41people are able to do it, and that that's eventually landing them in hospital rather
00:45than being able to see somebody before they get even more sick.
00:48And the other, you know, aside from the human cost, the economic cost of people going to
00:53hospital rather than being seen earlier in their illness is quite expensive.
00:57Now the Federal Government has been trying to manage this, they've actually increased
01:02the bulk billing incentive for GPs.
01:04So previously that only applied when you were seeing somebody who was a concession card holder
01:09or a young person, but during the election campaign they actually broadened that out to
01:13be any patient.
01:15But those changes only came into effect just at the start of this month, they've been in
01:19for less than a month, and so these aren't actually captured in this data.
01:23Right.
01:24So we're not seeing yet whether those incentives will make a difference.
01:27But what are health experts making of these figures out today?
01:31Essentially, wait and see.
01:33That's kind of the message that we're getting from people, including health economist Stephen
01:36Duckett, who said this is really too soon to say if what the government is doing has
01:41actually worked.
01:43And he's expecting to see probably more results over the next six months.
01:46He says that's certainly what the government's going to be hoping to see.
01:49We've heard from the head of the Australian Medical Association as well.
01:52They've said that this also, again, needs more time to work.
01:56It's hard to say yet whether it will or it won't.
01:58But for the AMA's part, they're also calling for a broader overhaul of Medicare.
02:03They're saying that it's not quite fit for purpose anymore because we've got an aging
02:06population.
02:06And of course, as you get older, you have a few more problems, definitely a few more
02:11health problems, and that there need to be more specific Medicare rebate items to deal
02:16with particular appointments for elderly people and those with chronic health conditions.
02:19So they're calling for a much broader overhaul of that system.
02:22But they're saying wait and see to find out whether what the government's doing has worked.
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