She said the inconsistency in billing for appointments led to female GPs earning less, solely based on the nature of the appointments they managed. Louise Stone has been a doctor for 30 years and currently works as a GP in Canberra. The ABC formula, like the AVPU scale and. The ‘classic’ formula of the ABC rule is aimed primarily at rescuers in general, i.e. If the doctor sees four patients an hour for more straightforward issues, and bulk bills them, Medicare pays the clinic about $166 plus four $24 incentive payments.īut if a doctor bulk bills a patient for an hour-long mental health or antenatal patient, the clinic would only receive $79 and $52, respectively, plus an incentive payment of just $8. First check that the airway is clear (particularly if the patient is unconscious) Then check if the casualty is breathing then check for circulation, e.g. On top of that, Medicare pays an incentive of $24. *2023 figures exclude 6 per cent of respondents who were non-practising GPs and do not add up to 100 per centĪccording to figures from Medicare, a GP clinic will receive about $191 if the doctor sees a patient with a complicated physical health problem for an hour and they are bulk billed. That payment is in addition to the Medicare rebate GP clinics receive.ĭata the government released in January showed the rate of bulk billing by GPs had increased by 2.1 per cent in the first two months since the increase was introduced.īut the $3.5 billion investment excluded appointments for mental health and antenatal care - the bulk of which were taken on by female GPs, according to data collected by the RACGP. It means a clinic is paid a bonus of about $24 - about $20 of which is passed on to the doctor - for every patient a physician bulk bills. Last year, the federal government tripled the Medicare incentive paid to GPs to bulk bill patients with healthcare cards and pension cards, and those under 16 years of age. Bulk billing incentives not increased for mental health and antenatal care If you want to bulk bill and provide a quality service for complex issues, you are penalised," Dr Price said.ĭr Price, who is the immediate past president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), and other doctors nationwide argue that recent changes in GP incentivisation for bulk billing have widened the gap in Medicare payments for various appointments, exacerbating the gender pay disparity among doctors. "I left the practice because I couldn't maintain an income. In general practice, doctors face financial consequences for time-intensive appointments. "It was painful to know I was working on more complex work and earning considerably less than my colleagues." "I was doing longer and longer consults, and watched my earnings fall because when you provide complex care, it takes time," she said.
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