In July last year the Federal Government abolished 61 Medicare Locals — regional primary healthcare organisations — replacing them with 31 Primary Health Networks.
During this overhaul a funding provider, known as the Practice Incentive Payment (PIP) Program, was tasked with subsidising after-hours services.
For the past 12 months the health networks have been providing additional funding to services, but from July 1, this assistance will permanently stop, and services will be forced to rely solely on the PIP program.
Mid West GP Network chairman Dr Ian Taylor said this would leave facilities with between a quarter and a third of the funding they used to receive.
“With this substantial reduction in assistance the after-hours clinics are no longer viable and it is likely they will close,” he said.
“An after-hours service to run wholly and solely funded by the PIP number is not a viable business proposition.”
Panaceum chief executive Richard Sykes, whose Geraldton after-hours practice will close on Friday, said regional areas would be hit the hardest because of a lack of patient numbers and resources.
“The issue we have is the PIP model, while it’s not a lot of money, it actually probably is a viable proposition for practices in metropolitan areas because they have volume,” he said.
“They can afford to get 30, 40, or 50 people through a night to a GP, and that’s a viable service.
“We don’t have that luxury in regional areas, but that doesn’t make the service any less important.”
Lack of regional GPs problematic
He said regional areas had fewer GPs to rely on.
“A lot of GPs in metropolitan areas do after-hours and nothing else,” he said.
“Country area GPs are already working long hours, you have to incentivise them to want to do an after-hours GP clinic and that costs money, they’re not going to do it for free.
“The biggest loser will be the community because potentially they may not have after-hours services for GPs to the standard of that they’ve got now, or they may not have them at all.”
Bunbury’s Brecken Health Care has been struggling to absorb the cost of running its after-hours clinic since its seed funding of $150,000 was cut.
Brecken’s principal GP Brenda Murrison said the after-hours component of the clinic was now running at a loss of at least $50,000 a year.
Dr Murrison said her business has been struggling to absorb the cost of running the clinic and had been forced to dramatically reduce the base payments provided to GPs working after-hours.
“It’s affected recruitment of doctors who won’t want to work in the after-hours period,” she said.
“It’s extremely hard to get people who want to do after-hours work.”
But a spokesman for Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley disputed the GP’s concerns.
He said there had been no reduction in total funding for after-hours primary health care, but said if gaps in regional and rural areas arose from July 1, the Primary Health Networks were expected to find a solution.
By Sebastian Neuweiler and Gian De Poloni