One of the regular bug-bears of life in Canberra is the difficulty finding a GP who bulk bills. Labor has made cheaper visits to the doctor a key plank of its pitch for a second term, with a Medicare funding boost a commitment quickly matched by the opposition. But there are doubts costs in the ACT could be reduced.
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00:00Using a cane may become an important part of Rowan Goyne's daily life.
00:11He has macular degeneration, which has so far taken 30% of the vision in his right eye.
00:17It's one of multiple chronic conditions he's managing, including with a monthly visit to
00:22the GP.
00:23So I spend a fair bit of time at the GP in a 10 minute appointment, which is only for
00:27one item technically, bringing them up to speed where I am with my relevant specialists.
00:33The regular appointments, alongside medications and treatments, all add up for someone who
00:39says he's limited in how much he can work.
00:42So I've delayed things sometimes, put some things off, scans and things like that, because
00:47I just couldn't afford them, just couldn't even catch them anything, just couldn't afford
00:52them at the time.
00:56A visit to the doctor is less common for Lauren James.
00:59As a healthy woman in her early 40s, it only tends to happen when she's sick.
01:04I think about the concept of check-ups or preventative medicine and maybe it's something
01:09I should do.
01:10I've never done it before.
01:12And now to me, the cost is something that is stopping me from doing that.
01:16When she first moved to Canberra from Sydney in 2020, Lauren initially found a bulk billing
01:22GP, but lately that's proven elusive.
01:26I could get in my car, probably in Sydney and drive somewhere to find somewhere to access
01:30these services.
01:32I'm not sure about that in Canberra, I'm continuing to do my research.
01:36Bulk billing rates in the ACT are lower now than before the pandemic, down from almost
01:42two thirds of GP visits in the last quarter of 2019 to barely more than half in the last
01:48three months of last year, consistently below the national rate.
01:53Today I announce that our government will expand the bulk billing incentive to cover
01:59all Australians.
02:04The Prime Minister has pledged to triple the bulk billing incentive for non-concession
02:09patients and provide an extra loading for practices that bulk bill all patients, with
02:14the target that 90% of visits would be bulk billed by 2030.
02:19There's a very healthy level of scepticism of GPs in Canberra about whether or not this
02:23would actually make any difference to the financial viability of general practice.
02:27The government says its changes would triple the number of practices that bulk bill all
02:31of their patients, including in the ACT.
02:35Figures from the Health Minister's office reveal the number of bulk billing practices
02:38here could increase from an estimated 8 to roughly 25.
02:44But as a percentage, it's still much lower than what's expected nationally.
02:49Dr Kerry Ost says ACT practices have higher expenses in areas like insurance and some
02:56staffing costs, and some doctors couldn't recover from being forced to bulk bill more
03:02often during the pandemic.
03:04What we found was that GPs were working longer hours to pay their mortgages and many of them
03:09actually left in the years following.
03:11Labor is already managing expectations about how effective its changes would be.
03:17The government cannot force a doctor to bulk bill.
03:20What we can do is ensure that the incentives are high enough for them to make that choice
03:25and that's what we're doing.
03:26So it remains to be seen what happens here.
03:29Are the cost structures going to change?
03:31Probably not.
03:32Is it going to mean that there's going to be a reduction?
03:35I don't hold out a lot of hope for that.
03:36A persistent expense some Canberrans can't afford to spare.