Gaps are coming to a bulk billing clinic near you — or lose it

A major clinic at Christies Beach is hiking its fees and pensioners face a gap as longstanding warnings about the lack of GPs in the country filter through to the suburbs.

A major suburban GP clinic has dumped bulk billing and increased prices with a gap fee of up to $43.05 amid a growing shortage of doctors.

From August 1, Christies Beach Medical Centre will only bulk bill children under 16 and Department of Veterans’ Affairs concession card holders.

All other concession card holders, including age pensioners, face a gap fee of $20 for consultations.

Patients without a concession card face a gap of $40.25 for a standard consultation and $43.05 for long consultation.

The clinic charges $80 for a standard consultation, $120 for a long consultation.

The Medicare rebates are respectively $39.75 or $76.95, leaving the gap fee.

The clinic’s manager on Tuesday declined to comment to The Advertiser on the rise in fees.

It comes after a warning that residents of country towns and outer suburbs need to start paying gap fees or lose their GPs as practices are becoming “economically unviable”.

A report has found that younger GPs are gravitating to wealthy inner suburbs where they can charge the gap for their services.

A medical clinic at Yankalilla on the Fleurieu Peninsula shut this, month blaming an inability to find resident GPs. It recommended patients go to a Christies Beach clinic 45 km away.

The announcement from Greater Fleurieu Medical Clinic of its closure.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners chairman Dr Daniel Byrne said Medicare rebates have not kept pace with inflation, leaving clinics trying to juggle affordable care with economic viability.

He said clinics need to consider a gap for people who can afford it.

The warning comes as application for GP registrar places plummets, as young doctors turn to more lucrative specialities.

Some young doctors now see public hospital pay rates of – in some cases – more than $1m a year a year as more enticing than running a small business where Medicare rebates don’t keep pace with overheads.

Rural Doctors Association of SA Dr Peter Rischbieth called for lateral thinking such as a HECS rebate to attract young doctors to become GPs in country towns.

The Murray Bridge GP praised the regional lifestyle but noted country clinics need several doctors to spread the load, allow for a “break, camaraderie as well as training”.

SA Health recruits junior doctors from overseas every year to work in the public hospital system.

Originally published as Gaps are coming to a bulk billing clinic near you — or lose it