general practice – Michmutters
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Australia

Female GPs say ‘inadequate’ Medicare rebates, pressure to bulk bill patients adds to emotional burn out

For two years, Sarah McLay has dipped into her personal savings, sacrificed a take-home wage and run her central Queensland medical practice at a loss of “several hundred thousand dollars”.

Regardless of the hours Dr McLay worked or the patients she saw, the numbers did not stack up.

“We were really subsidizing the public’s health care,” Dr McLay said.

“Nothing is ever truly free. Everything costs someone something.”

Most patients probably don’t think about the finances of a medical clinic — and that’s provided you can get into the waiting room in the first place.

Yet financial strain is part of a hidden toll that Dr McLay and other general practitioners say is disproportionately affecting women and adding to skills shortages as burnt-out doctors leave the profession.

A financial and emotional gender disparity has emerged because female GPs tended to see more patients needing longer consultations.

A woman with mid-length brown hair smiles at the camera, she is wearing a stethoscope around her neck.
Dr McLay says Clermont will have no permanent doctor if she was forced to close her clinic.(Supplied)

“Yes, I did medicine because I wanted to help people, but I can’t change the reality that our Medicare rebate is actually completely inadequate to pay our bills,” Dr McLay said.

“I can’t keep sacrificing and suffering because the government doesn’t value what we do.”

Short appointments more lucrative

General practitioners across the board have reported struggling to provide care with Medicare rebates that have not increased with inflation.

Louise Stone, a Canberra GP and medical educator said short consultations received a higher rebate per minute than longer appointments.

Dr Stone said she would “earn four times as much” doing back-to-back vaccination appointments than a 40-minute consult for someone with mental health or chronic physical conditions.

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Categories
Australia

Locum doctor costs skyrocket 50pc to $3,500 a day due to shortage

The cost of a short-term locum doctor contract has increased 50 per cent in a year, according to rural doctors.

Locum contracts are being offered at $3,500 a day in Launceston, $3,000 a day in Bathurst and Mount Gambier, and $280 an hour in Broken Hill.

Karyn Matterson works locum contracts around the country and so far this year has worked from Clermont in Queensland to Collarenebri and Corowa in New South Wales, and from Tasmania to Palm Island off Townsville.

“Locum doctors, both in the city and in the bush are in high demand,” Dr Matterson said.

“It’s increased exponentially as the general practitioner shortage has become more visible across Australia.”

Dr Matterson saw a connection between the decreasing Medicare rebates for GP appointments in real terms and the increase in the need for locums, as GP clinics around the country struggled to find staff.

“That is putting pressure on emergency departments across Australia because we’re seeing a lot more GP-type presentations in hospitals,” she said.

“The people who are presenting are actually sicker than what we’ve seen in primary health care in the past because they can’t get into doctors.”

‘Problem will get worse’ without reform, says doctor

The Royal Australian College of GPs said the cost of Medicare rebates for most GP appointments had risen by 1.6 per cent.

That’s well short of the most recent inflation figure of 6.1 per cent.

A man standing in a corridor, wearing a mask
Dr Matt Masel predicts the rural doctor shortage will only get worse.(Supplied: Dr Matt Masel)

Matt Masel, president of the Rural Doctors Association of Queensland, said it reflected a lack of longer-term planning over time.

Dr Masel is a partner in a GP practice in Goondiwindi, almost 300 kilometers south-west of Brisbane. He said the increasing cost of locums was a sign the health system was not working.

“We’re seeing doctors coming out of medical schools where 50 per cent used to choose general practice and only about 15 per cent do now,” he said.

“That means this problem is only going to be worse in a few years’ time unless we really make those choices to go into general practice and rural practice more attractive.”

Dr Masel said the increasing cost of locums would put it out of reach for many GP clinics in the bush.

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