Bulk-billing incentive allocation revealed in ‘coming weeks’

The Federal Government will reveal exactly how it will allocate its new 12.5% Bulk Billing Incentive Payment ‘over coming weeks’, with the landmark reforms now just three months away.
 
The commitment from Health and Ageing Minister Mark Butler comes amid differing views from GPs about how the loading payment should be divided when it goes live on 1 November.
 
The healthcare reform was in the spotlight on ABC’s 7.30 program on Monday, with Minister Butler asked how the loading payment for fully bulk-billing practices will work when the reforms begin.
 
‘We’re working through that question with the sector very closely,’ he said.
 
‘Some are saying that the practice should get the whole lot. Someone’s saying that the doctors should get the whole lot. Some are saying that it should be divided evenly.
 
‘We’ve had a very good process of consultation on that, and I’ll make a call on it over coming weeks.’
 
Associate Professor Rashmi Sharma, Chair of the RACGP Expert Committee – Funding and Health System Reform, has called for clarity as quickly as possible to allow clinics to adapt to the significant changes.
 
‘These are business decisions that directly affect the viability of practices in terms of the services that we can offer, the cost that we can absorb, and the payments to people that work within practice – it’s very, very complex,’ she told newsGP.
 
At a time of sweeping healthcare reform, it is not the first time this year that GPs have called for timely clarification of changes, following a significant shift to chronic disease management MBS items introduced in July.
 
RACGP President Dr Michael Wright, who is currently meeting with politicians on all sides in Canberra to discuss bulk-billing reform among other issues, reiterated that the college would continue to advocate for GPs no matter their business model.
 
‘We’re going to support practices, regardless of whether they take up the Bulk Billing Incentive Payment or not,’ he told newsGP. 
 
‘We know these changes are not going to work for everyone.
 
‘At the end of the day, we will continue to work with the Government to support affordable access to general practice care for all Australians.’

The RACGP President is in Canberra this week to discuss healthcare reforms.

In a newsGP poll last month, a significant majority (71.6%) of 1399 respondents said they want 100% of the loading to be paid to the GP, with individual arrangements determining how the practice component be paid.
 
Only 9.7% of those surveyed want the payment to be split evenly between the GP and the practice, while 10.8% said the payment should entirely go to the practice.
 
Dr Wright said these poll results are in line with the feedback he has received.
 
‘This is what I’ve been hearing – most GPs have said that this additional funding should just be paid to GPs the same way as other Medicare billings,’ he said.
 
‘That looks like the simplest way.’
 
Since announcing the flagship reform earlier this year, the Federal Government has maintained that 4800 general practices will be bulk billing every patient by 2030, with most of those clinics being financially better off.
 
Minister Butler said Government modelling around practice earnings under the incentive has been calculated by assuming the payment is ‘broadly split evenly between practices and practitioners themselves’.
 
‘If that changed at the margins, again, that might change the salary that a GP fully bulk billing might get, but only at the margins,’ he said.
 
Minister Butler said that in two years’ time, a full-time bulk-billing doctor will have a salary increase of about $125,000, with around $155,000 of additional payments going to a fully bulk-billing GP in the bush.
 
‘This is a hard sector to make change in,’ he told 7.30.
 
‘The proof of the pudding will be in the eating for the practices. Really crunching the numbers over coming months, making the decisions before 1 November.
 
‘For all of the practice or doctors that might be … talking sceptically about this, I’m talking to lots of doctors and lots of practices who have taken the decision that they’ll go back to full bulk billing from 1 November.
 
‘All we can do, given that I don’t employ doctors, it’s not like the UK NHS, these are private businesses, is to calibrate the policy carefully to make sure that as many practices were better off as I could afford responsibly using taxpayer dollars.
 
‘And I think that we’ve done that.’
 
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