MBS failing patients
Australian Medicine
2 November 2009
One of the key planks of AMA advocacy for many years has been the campaign to have the MBS properly indexed and increased so that it reflects the reality of providing high quality care in contemporary Australia.
The cost of providing good medical care is rising. The Government’s contribution continues to fall away. That is why patient gap payments are increasing.
Each year around this time, the AMA provides its members with the AMA List of Medical
Services and Fees, which provides guidance to AMA members in setting their fees, based on their own practice cost experience.
Practice costs, including employing practice staff, and operating expenses such as rent, electricity, computers and professional insurance must all be met from the fee charged by the doctor.
Yet successive governments have failed to index the Medicare schedule of fees in line with other indices such as CPI and average weekly earnings, let alone the increase in the cost of delivering medical care.
There is now quite a disconnect between Medicare schedule fees and the realistic cost of providing the services.
The good news is that the AMA message on the inadequacy of the MBS is now getting much stronger media and community support.
The new AMA fee for a standard GP consultation is $64, up from $62 in 2008.In contrast, the MBS fee for a Level B GP consultation is $34.30, increased from $33.55.
In years gone by, some media commentators have slammed the AMA List of Medical Services and Fees – but not this year.
The Federal AMA worked closely with key health journalists, ensuring that they had the full story, and history, of how the MBS has failed to keep up with the cost of providing quality health care.
This year there were no $64 questions for the AMA, but there were plenty of unanswered questions for the Government about why the MBS continues so dismally to fail patients.
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph ran the story on its front page and page 2 – with the subheading ‘Health rebate slips further behind’ and a story very sympathetic to the plight of both patients and hardworking GPs. The story ran very big in Victoria and South Australian newspapers on the same day, with follow-up in other States on subsequent days.
More importantly, the AMA message about the MBS was carried nationally on radio and television, with scores of interviews on radio news and talkback with AMA Federal President Dr Pesce and Vice President Dr Hambleton.
There was saturation favourable and supportive news coverage. The Minister’s response? A late and meek ‘doctors are still charging too much’.
The Daily Telegraph reported that, in 2007, the Health Minister had ‘promised to reform the system to better reward doctors who spent more time with their patients. Under changes she had proposed, doctors who spent more time treating the chronically ill and those who provided preventive health advice would be given a higher Medicare rebate. But two years after she promised to reform the system nothing has happened.’
Good reporting. And fair.
