Having come into medicine later in life I endeavour to be a general practitioner who practises medicine rather than medicare billing. I see my job as preventing my patients from getting sick through quality preventative care, and also when they have acute illnesses doing my utmost to treat them and prevent hospital emergency referrals. Hence saving the government money! I will bulk bill those patients that need it and charge a small gap to those who can afford it. I feel that if the medicine you practise is high quality, evidence based and patient centred people are happy to pay a gap. Read more…