AUSTRALIANS will face a $100 charge to see a medical specialist in a hidden Budget nasty, as a tally of the government’s new medical charges shows they will cost a patient $232 extra a year.
It comes as Health Minister Peter Dutton has revealed doctors will get a $10,000 pay rise as a result of the Budget and as New Zealand moved to make doctors visits for kids free.
With medical groups concerned the new $7 GP charge will deter patients from seeing a doctor, analysis shows the Budget will lift the patient charge for a specialist to $100 a visit.
The $100 charge is the result of the government’s decision to continue a freeze on Medicare rebates for specialists.
The AMA says its recommended fee for specialists is expected to be $170 next year while the Medicare rebate will remain $72.75 and this will leave patients facing a gap fee of $97.72.
Only 28 per cent of specialists bulk bill so patients will have to meet this fee entirely from their own pocket.
“Joe Hockey has been saying he thinks people should stop drinking a couple of beers to see a doctor, but only if you are drinking Grange could you afford to see a specialist,” Greens health spokesman Senator Di Natale said.
Consumer’s Health Forum chief Stan Stankevicius said the “yawning gaps between the Medicare rebate and the actual fees charged by specialists already mean access to necessary specialist care is beyond the means of many Australians”.
Opposition Health spokesman Catherine King said it was “one of a number of increased costs for patients and broken promises by Tony Abbott”.
“A tax on doctor visits, more expensive medicine and a $50 billion cut from Australia’s public hospitals. Australians should not be the ones paying for Tony Abbott’s broken promises,” she said.
Further analysis of the budget has revealed it will push up medical bills for patients by an average $232 per patient per year.
Australians receive an average of 14.8 Medicare funded services per year, five are GP visits, they make one visit to a specialist, have five pathology tests and one x-ray and use eight prescription medicines a year.
The total effect of the $7 charge on GP visits and medical tests and the extra $5 charge for scripts and the $100 out of pocket expenses for a specialist will add $232 a year to a patients’ medical bills.
For pensioners the extra charges will amount on $196 on average.
In an exclusive interview with News Corp Australia, Mr Dutton revealed doctors would make a “windfall” financial gain as a result of the Budget.
This is because although the government is cutting the Medicare rebate to doctors by $5, medicos will have to charge patients $7 each visit and get to keep the extra $2.
The average GP provides around 4,950 consultations per year so the $2 per visit charge will deliver them $9,900 per year on average.
Mr Dutton says doctors should use this pay rise to bulk bill many cancer patients who face a $500 a year increase in their medical costs as a result of the government’s new $7 medical and $5 prescription charges.
“This is a windfall for GPs, this will give them greater discretion in relation to bulk billing,” he said. “Doctors will still have the discretion to bulk bill … and that discretion should be applied for people in most need and those cancer patients you speak of.”
Australian Medical Association spokesman Professor Brian Owler says the government provided the $2 to GPs to help them cover the extra administrative costs they face applying the new $7 per visit charge for patient visits.
Doctors who decided to bulk bill patients would lose $5 each time they did so and when administrative costs were included the $10,000 would be “whittled away pretty quickly”, he said.
Source: Herald Sun