Doctors’ federal election demands: $1 billion for GPs and Medicare

Doctors are taking the unprecedented step of entering the election campaign demanding both major parties put more than $1 billion a year back into general practice and modernise Medicare.

Family doctors are turning their surgeries into election campaign hubs as they demand $1 billion a year injection into GP care.

A radical modernisation of Medicare that would mean patients could contact their doctor by phone and email instead of waiting in their surgery is one of their four key demands.

Just hours after Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the election, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners launched a major election campaign to refinance General Practice.

“The Government has taken $1 billion out of general practice though the Medicare freeze and both parties need to address the damage that has done with patients paying more and more to see a GP,” RACGP president Dr Harry Nespolon said.

“We want patients to see doctors when they need to not when they can afford to and in the way that they want to see us and that is not always sitting in a chair in a practice,” he told News Corp.

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RACGP president Dr Harry Nespolon. Picture: Supplied

The RACGP plans to turn GP practices into election campaign hubs as they take on both major parties over cuts to health care that has seen fewer and fewer medical graduates training to become GPs.

Medicare rebates for GP visits were frozen for over four years at just $37 until the government finally indexed them by a paltry 55 cents last July.

Dr Nespolon says the freeze ripped $1 billion out of general practice has turned new medical graduates off training as GPs.

More than half the nation’s doctors are now specialists and GP training programs are having problems filling all their training spots.

Both the Government and the Labor Party have pledged to end the Medicare freeze from July this year but Dr Nespolon says it is not good enough.

The RACGP wants the new government to immediately put $1 billion a year back into general practice by giving GP clinics a lump-sum annual payments to cover the cost of dealing with patients over the telephone and via email, these types of consultations currently receive no Medicare rebates.

The government provided $100 million a year for GP’s to provide these types of consultations to people aged over 70 in the budget.

However, the amount works out at just $37 per patient per year aged over 70.

The group also wants the Medicare rebates for long consultations raised by 8 per cent, more money for mental health consultations and better financing for treating patients with complex and chronic illnesses.

Spending more on general practice could save money by keeping people out of hospital. Picture Getty Images

This sort of investment would actually end up saving the health system money by keeping people out of hospital, Dr Nespolon said.

The RACGP has printed thousands of posters it plans to position in general practices around the country as it tries to make financing of general practice a major election issue.

It is urging all GPs to contact their local candidates to ask them what they intend to do about funding general practice and says doctors will be willing to raise the issues with their patients during consultations.

Doctors will be urging voters not to vote for a tax cut but to vote for better health care.