Cost to visit your GP will rise under Budget, doctor groups say

THE cost to visit your local GP is likely to rise and bulk billing services to plummet following the release of the Federal Budget.

A visit to your local GP is set to cost more after a freeze on Medicare rebates was extended in the Federal Budget.

THE cost of visiting your local GP is likely to rise and the availability of bulk billing plummet as the government again goes to the core of Medicare to get funds for other projects.

Doctors’ groups are warning more GPs will increase charges to patients because of an extended freeze on Medicare rebates in Tuesday night’s Budget.

The highly conservative Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has called the move “calamitous” and fears the Budget could put the entire health system under threat.

It said the measure “may leave General Practitioners unviable — which is just an extraordinary outcome”.

“This is an illogical Budget which has taken no heed of the sensible advice from the RACGP,” said the college president Frank Jones in a statement.

“By extending the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Scheme for a further two years, the government is threatening the future and quality of general practice services, the frontline of Australia’s healthcare.”

The Australian Medical Association is considering promoting courses on the issue for members during the election campaign, which would highlight the controversy.

And it is certain to be highlighted at the association’s national conference late this month.

The extra two years of the rebate freeze — 2018-20 — will save the government $925.3 million in what Budget papers call “efficiencies”.

The government wants the money to “fund health policy priorities”.

However, the further two years push to six the duration of the pause in indexation of the Medicare rebates, putting pressure on doctors’ earnings.

So far most doctors have absorbed the impact.

AMA president Brian Owler said a significant number of them would not be able to continue to do so.

“They’ve absorbed the rebate freeze for a period of time, but I think now we are going to see people ... start to say we can’t sustain it any more.”

Dr Owler said bulk billing rates were going to fall.

Doctors said they were given no warning of the extended freeze. The process began when the 2014 Budget halted indexation of rebates for specialist care.

At the end of 2014, a four year freeze was imposed on GP rebates.