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Admin burden top reason GPs plan to leave practice: RACGP
In a ‘wakeup call’ for governments, the new Health of the Nation report found 70% of GPs are concerned about their admin workload.
A newsGP poll found half of all respondents spend between three and five minutes waiting on the phone line for PBS authorities.
GPs’ administrative workload has become so ‘out of control’, it is now the top reason many are planning to stop practising in the next five years, according to alarming new data from the RACGP.
The early results from the college’s new Health of the Nation survey found GPs’ concern about their administrative workload is skyrocketing, up from 60% in 2023 to 70% in 2024.
The annual survey of GPs, which will be released in full next month, found that 66% of GP respondents said a reduction in compliance would encourage them to keep working for longer.
In response, the RACGP is calling for the Federal Government to scrap the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) authority system, which is forcing GPs to make a phone call or ‘use a clunky online portal’.
A recent newsGP poll found half of all respondents spend between three and five minutes waiting on the phone line for PBS authorities, and a further 27% spend between six and 10 minutes waiting.
The RACGP is also calling for a reduction in the length and duplication of information required for Centrelink, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and Department of Veterans’ Affairs forms and to make them compatible with general practice clinical systems.
Additionally, it says ‘overly complex hospital referrals’ are currently forcing GPs to use a specific template for each hospital unit and if details are not correct, the referral is rejected.
RACGP President Dr Nicole Higgins said the new data should serve as a ‘wakeup call’ for the Federal Government, and that GPs are currently being bogged down by having to ‘tick a box for various government agencies’.
‘GP red tape does my head in – it drives me nuts going back and forth between different programs and different forms that aren’t integrated, that don’t talk to each other, and are on different platforms,’ she told newsGP.
‘I became a GP to practice medicine, not to become a pen pusher.
‘Red tape means I’m spending more time but doing less for my patients, which ends up costing them more and doesn’t make sense.’
Changes to GPs’ administrative burdens have begun rolling out this year following sustained advocacy from the RACGP, including reforms to better integrate and modernise the process for the assignment of benefit for bulk-billed Medicare services.
Additionally last month, the RACGP called for a Commonwealth rethink of the impacts of regulation and admin burden on GPs as part of the Long-term Insights Briefing project.
Dr Higgins described the current situation as a ‘waste of the extensive medical training, skills and experience Australia’s GPs have’.
‘The good news for the Government is there is a simple and effective way to increase access to essential healthcare for Australians – reduce the unnecessary admin workload for GPs, so we have more time for our patients,’ she said.
‘Australians value the relationship they have with their GPs highly, and it’s what makes Australia healthier.
‘Freeing up GP time for patients should be something all politicians get behind.’
The full 2024 Health of the Nation report will be released in October.
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