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‘Join this century’: Call for change amid growing GP red tape
The RACGP is demanding a solution from the Commonwealth after presenting it with a long list of cumbersome ways its services are burdening time-poor GPs.
The Health of the Nation report showed 60% of GPs are dissatisfied with the amount of administration in their work.
The RACGP is urging for a Federal Government rethink to address the impacts of regulation and admin burden on GPs in a new submission.
The calls for change come as part of the Long-term Insights Briefing project, which was designed to explore ‘the future of government service delivery beyond the current cycles of reform’.
Deputy Chair of RACGP Expert Committee – Funding and Health System Reform, Dr Emil Djakic, says this rise in administrative burden is one of the biggest issues for general practice.
‘Imagine the amount of time we collectively waste because of inefficient federal digital services and imagine how many full-time equivalent GPs that’s costing per year because of poor design,’ he told newsGP.
‘We’re really keen for our federal side of things to do some catch up and join this century.’
In its submission to the project, the RACGP’s list of current red tape examples included:
- frequent changes to the MBS
- use of vague and ambiguous language in MBS explanatory materials
- requiring GPs to wait on the phone for a PBS authority script
- the need for a patient to assign their benefit to the GP each time they are bulk billed
- use of forms that do not integrate with general practice clinical software
- issues when registering a practice and patients for MyMedicare
- the 90-day pay doctor cheque scheme
- payroll tax rules in various jurisdictions
- Medicare compliance letters asking providers to review a schedule of claims made in the past.
To try and remedy the situation, the RACGP has called for digital systems used by Government to be fit-for-purpose and easy to use, as well as simplifying the MBS where possible, such as through the removal of disease-specific item numbers.
It also recommended the need to inform GPs in a timely manner of major policy changes, adapting Government forms to better integrate with clinical and practice software, and supporting research into innovative technologies to automate administrative processes.
RACGP President Dr Nicole Higgins says GPs are being increasingly burdened with administrative tasks that detract from their core role of providing medical care to their patients.
‘In recent years, particularly during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, GPs have been required to keep up to date regarding streams of major policy changes,’ she said.
‘These issues are compounded by a lack of remuneration for tasks completed in the patient’s absence, with MBS rebates not available for paperwork completed when the patient is not present.
‘Digital systems used by Government need to be fit-for-purpose and easy to use.’
In the latest
Health of the Nation report, 65% of GPs reported that regulatory and compliance burden has made them consider stopping practise, with 61% considering reducing the amount of time they spend working in general practice.
Dr Djakic believes it is even more frustrating for GPs when things that are touted as ‘technological solutions’ instead end up creating more work.
‘I hold a great dislike for technology solutions that actually burden us more rather than unburden us and I’m afraid, within our environment, there are quite a few federal services that look clever that, in fact, are fairly dumb,’ he said.
‘There’s an online system where, for the first time in 28 years of my career, I now have to manually transcribe a Medicare number into a digital document, and I look at that as an absolute failure of design.’
Dr Djakic now hopes the Government will take note of the issues here.
‘We would like to see more nuanced and sophisticated digital services that enable care rather than potentially have an adverse effect,’ he said.
‘I’m in no way wanting to abandon the safety and security of data, but it has to become more streamlined process.
‘It’s about making sure that the services we’re engaging with, particularly modernised services that are on our digital desktops, are actually fit for purpose.’
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