In an announcement with Health Minister Peter Dutton, the Prime Minister this afternoon announced the co-payment would become “optional” for doctors to charge, reinforced with a $5 per consultation cut in Medicare funding for doctors for adults without concession cards. The government “wouldn’t mind” doctors charging a co-payment to make up for the shortfall, said Abbott, in effect shifting responsibility to doctors.
The policy would work in exactly the same way as the government’s original co-payment policy, which has failed to attract support in the Senate and proven deeply unpopular with voters, except that it wouldn’t apply to children or concession card holders, nor would it apply to pathology tests. However, the government will restructure consultation guidelines for Medicare payments to further reduce payments to doctors for short consultations.
The Prime Minister appeared to admit doctors had not been consulted about the “optional co-payment” when questioned. The Australian Medical Association has been a vociferous critic of the original proposal and is unlikely to be supportive of this change, which shifts full responsibility for charging patients onto doctors under the guise of being “optional”.
Savings will still be directed to a medical research fund, which Abbott vigorously defended, demanding to know who would not be in favour of medical research. The use of savings for the research fund has undermined government efforts to sell the co-payment as necessitated by the budget situation it inherited.
The prime minister said after a cabinet meeting in Canberra on Tuesday the government would proceed with a revised policy that would allow GPs to charge an “optional” $5 fee for adults who did not hold concession cards.
The government would reduce the Medicare rebate paid to providers by $5 for non-concession card holders, and it would be up to the provider to decide whether to recoup the money from patients.
Abbott said there would be “no change to bulk billing for children under 16, for pensioners, for veterans, for people in nursing homes and other aged care institutions”.
“For some time I’ve had backbenchers coming to me, I’ve had members of the community coming to me saying, ‘We support the idea of more price signals in the system, that’s an economic reform, but can’t it be better for children and for pensioners?’ That’s exactly what [health minister] Peter Dutton and I are announcing today,” he said.
Dutton said the government was also scrapping its original plan to introduce a co-payment on pathology and diagnostic imaging services
“I believe very strongly that this has a strong level of balance and equity,” Dutton said of the new package.
The original policy, spelled out in the May budget, required legislation to adjust bulk billing incentives. That would have been achieved by reducing the Medicare rebate by $5 and allowing the provider to collect $7 per service.
The proposal was one of the most unpopular elements of the government’s first budget, handed down in May, and was considered unlikely to pass the Senate. It was due to begin in July 2015, but the government never presented legislation to parliament to implement it.
The co-payment, applying to GP visits and out-of-hospital pathology and diagnostic imaging services, would have raised $3.5bn over five years for the new medical research future fund.
Tuesday’s announcement followed mixed messages towards the end of the parliamentary year over the future of the co-payment.
Abbott told a recent party room meeting he intended to clear “one or two barnacles” from the government before Christmas. The prime minister’s office briefed the press gallery that the government was shelving the $7 co-payment, having long given up on attempts to persuade the implacably opposed Senate crossbench to pass it, and that it was “going back to the drawing board”.
But then the leader of the government in the Senate, Eric Abetz, insisted the government was, in fact, standing by the policy, the treasurer Joe Hockey said the co-payment was not a barnacle and declared “our policy stands”, and the health minister, Peter Dutton, suggested the government could try to impose it via regulation.
The government ended the parliamentary year lagging in the polls with Abbott’s personal popularity also declining sharply. Labor had campaigned strongly against the “GP tax” and university fee deregulation, another budget policy that was blocked by the Senate last week.
AMA supports protection of vulnerable
Doctors have welcomed moves to protect children and pensioners from a modified GP co-payment.
However, they’re concerned the federal government is freezing the indexation of Medicare rebates until 2018.
The government has ditched plans for a $7 co-payment on all patients, replacing it with a $5 optional co-payment that will be determined by doctors.
Children under 16, pensioners and other concession card holders will be exempted, as will pathology tests and diagnostic imaging services.
Australians who are not bulk billed will have their Medicare rebate reduced by $5 to $32.05 for a standard consultation.
Doctors will receive $5 less for bulk-billed patients.
“AMA welcomes protection for vulnerable patients and exclusion of diagnostic imaging and pathology; concerned over rebate freeze until 2018,” Australian Medical Association president Brian Owler tweeted after the government’s announcement on Tuesday.
Doctors opposed the government’s initial plan, saying it would discourage poorer people from visiting their doctor.
Dr Owler said he had already spoken to Health Minister Peter Dutton about the changes.
The AMA would work through the details of the new package and consult with GPs, he said
Govt switches to backdoor GP tax: Shorten
PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has dumped his $7 Medicare co-payment in favour of a back-door tax, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says.
THE government has ditched plans for a co-payment on all patients, replacing it with a $5 optional co-payment that will be determined by doctors.
“It is still a tax on Australians going to the doctor,” Mr Shorten told reporters in Melbourne.
“It is still a GP tax, it is still a broken promise, and we know that when he gets chance he’ll reintroduce it again.”
PM statement on GP copayment & cuts to Medicare rebates for GP consults
JOINT PRESS RELEASE
THE HON. TONY ABBOTT MP, PRIME MINISTER
THE HON. PETER DUTTON MP, MINISTER FOR HEALTH
A STRONG AND SUSTAINABLE MEDICARE
The $7 Medicare co-payment measure announced in the 2014-15 Budget will no longer proceed. The Government will instead implement a package of measures that will strengthen Medicare and help make it sustainable, ensuring Australians will continue to have access to affordable, world-class health care. The Government has listened to the views of the community. This new package ensures the Government can make Medicare sustainable, improve the quality of care for patients and continue its repair of the Budget. The Medicare rebate paid to doctors for some consultations will be reduced by $5 and the troublesome issue of ‘six minute medicine’ will be addressed by encouraging doctors to spend more time with patients.
Optional co-payment and protection for patients
A new optional co-payment will be introduced for GP services with additional protections for patients. The Government will not impose a co-payment on GP services provided to pensioners, Commonwealth concession card holders, all children under the age of 16, veterans funded through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, attendances at residential aged care facilities and pathology and diagnostic imaging services. Incentives paid to doctors to encourage them to bulk bill concession card holders and children under the age of 16 will also remain. Medicare rebates for common GP consultations will be reduced by $5 for non-concessional patients aged 16 and over from 1 July 2015. Doctors may choose to recoup the $5 rebate reduction through an optional co-payment or continue to bulk bill non-concessional patients over the age of 16. Doctors will be under no obligation to charge the co-payment and this decision will be entirely at their discretion.
Improving patient outcomes by tackling ‘six minute medicine’
In a further move to streamline Medicare and improve quality outcomes, the Government will make changes to standard GP consultation items which currently provide the same Medicare rebate for a six minute consultation as for a 19 minute consultation. This change will ensure that Medicare expenditure more accurately reflects the time a GP spends with a patient. It encourages a shift away from ‘six minute medicine’ so that appropriate, comprehensive care is better rewarded over patient throughput. Additionally Medicare fees for all services provided by GPs, medical specialists, allied health practitioners, optometrists and others will remain at their current level until July 2018.
Making Medicare Sustainable and the Medical Research Future Fund
The Government is committed to taking these prudent measures to protect Medicare. Medicare will not survive in the long term without changes to make it sustainable. In the last decade spending on Medicare has more than doubled from $8 billion in 2004 to $20 billion today, yet we raise only $10 billion from the Medicare levy. Spending is projected to climb to $34 billion in the next decade to 2024.
In the last year alone, 275 million services were provided free to patients. That’s three out of every four Medicare services being bulk billed. These changes will contribute more than $3 billion to the Medical Research Future Fund which will fund the research needed to find cures to the health problems of today. In six years the returns from the MRFF will provide a billion dollars to be invested in medical research annually –doubling our national funding commitments to researchers.
Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/249602657/Statement-GP-Co-Payment