An increasing number of GPs across Australia are opting to charge disadvantaged people a fee instead of bulk billing them because the Medicare rebate doctors receive to see patients isn’t covering rising costs. | Melbchief
A growing number of GPs are charging disadvantaged people instead of bulk billing them because the Medicare rebate isn’t covering their costs.
“Up until recently, those practices that didn’t bulk bill everyone, they would as a routine policy bulk bill pensioners and health care card holders,” said Leanne Wells, chief executive of the Consumers Health Forum. “But now some are starting to say ‘Look, we can’t even afford that guarantee any more’.”
While GPs are not obliged to bulk bill health care card holders and patients from low socio-economic groups, or those who have a pension card, they generally have since Medicare’s inception in 1984. Melbourne GP Anita Munoz, who chairs the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ Victorian faculty, said the rebate given to doctors had not increased in real terms for many years, and that many GPs could not afford to continue bulk billing without charging a gap fee.
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