Medicare is a beloved institution. Ask Australians what makes them proud of their country, and many are fiercely protective of its promise you can access the healthcare you need – whether it be surgery or a doctor’s appointment – regardless of your income bracket.
Mere money is not the solution. What’s being urged is no less than a system overhaul, involving the most significant changes to Medicare since it was introduced last century. How Australians access primary care – their first point of contact with the healthcare system, usually their GP – is set for a shake-up, and state and territory leaders are meeting in Canberra today to find out what that looks like.
Bulk-billed doctor visits – where the federal government rebate covers the full cost of the appointment, leaving no out-of-pocket costs for the patient – have long been seen as a stalwart of Australia’s universal healthcare system. They remove financial barriers to healthcare and encourage people to use one of the most cost-efficient forms of care in our health system.
That’s because of the flow-on effect on the rest of the health system. The GP is people’s gateway to further care and critical to identifying problems before they get worse. When people avoid seeing GPs, their conditions can become serious enough that they need more intensive medical care. That’s worse for their health, puts more pressure on hospitals, and costs the government more.State governments don’t pay for Medicare – it’s a federal government program – but they have a stake in the issue.
Now, he sees very few of those things. “My day is spent dealing a lot more with chronic illness, older patients. We know the population is ageing and, as treatments get better, many conditions that were once acute conditions are now chronic conditions,” Willet says.For instance, an elderly patient might require monitoring of dementia, diabetes and recovery from a broken hip all at once.
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