Doctors protest medical regulation ‘stealth tax’

Doctors’ groups are protesting plans to slug medics hundreds of extra dollars a year in medical registration fees.

AMA president Steve Robson.

Doctors’ groups are protesting plans to significantly hike medical registration fees as a result of ramped-up activities of the medical regulator in cosmetic surgery regulation and the recruitment of international doctors.

Medical registration processes and accreditation of doctors is self-funded by the profession, but governments are increasingly tasking the national regulator with carrying out national policies that the Australian Medical Association says are now so extensive they should be funded by the commonwealth.

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency is funded entirely by medical registration fees paid yearly by doctors, which currently average some $860 a year and are set to rise by almost $150 a year on ­average.

These are in addition to fees practitioners pay to their medical colleges and professional asso­ciations or societies, as well as medical indemnity insurance premiums.

AMA president Steve Robson said he understood the yearly registration fees were set to increase by about 16 per cent, “with much of this increase being driven by initiatives that have been determined by health ministers”.

Mr Robson has written to all state and territory health ministers as well as federal Health Minister Mark Butler to protest at the steep fee hike.

The AMA says doctors have always been prepared to pay reasonable costs associated with medical registration and accreditation, including development and operation of registration standards, maintaining the public register, the auditing of practitioners for compliance with registration standards and the National Law, as well as criminal prosecutions for breaches in advertising and use of title.

“However, AHPRA and the national boards are being increasingly tasked by governments with additional functions,” Professor Robson said in the letter.

“While health ministers appear more than willing to increase the workload of the AHPRA, you do not appear willing to help support this work with extra funding and have simply decided to impose what is effectively a tax on the profession.

“For example, while health ministers talk about the need to reduce barriers to the recruitment of international medical graduates, including the costs of registration and assessment, you have not been prepared to make any investment in helping bring down the costs of these processes or supporting IMGs in navigating these processes. This is despite the reality that many of these IMGs are being recruited to work in your own health services.”

Mr Robson told The Australian the rise in registration fees was “way beyond inflationary” and would act as a disincentive for doctors to remain in practice amid a workforce crisis.

“We’re saying these additional projects over and above the normal running of the registration processes for health practitioners, if they’re coming from health ministers and they’re not a routine part of regulating health practitioners, then they should be funded by governments.”

Mr Butler referred questions on the matter to the Department of Health, which said “compounding factors” in the past year, including escalating numbers of notifications and investigations of medical practitioners and reforms to regulate the cosmetic sector contributed to increased regulatory costs.