Specialist Fees Denying Patient Access to Care: Time to Act
“Reports that specialist fees are skyrocketing and reducing access of patients to specialist care are very concerning and long in the making” said Dr Tim Woodruff, President, Doctors Reform Society.
“The Federal Government has been very slow to act on this issue despite repeated advice””, said Dr Woodruff. “We have long recommended dedicated federal funding to state governments to be used specifically to increase their specialist outpatient facilities, with the amount based on measured need in the community. We have also recently recommended that community specialist medical centres should be funded to employ salaried specialists, just like the urgent care clinics the government has funded. These changes could impact the problem within 12 months. Other changes will take time.”
Specialists in public hospitals are salaried”, said Dr Woodruff. “There is no reason why community specialist clinics could not attract specialists to work for a salary”.
The suggestion that transparency with doctors forced to put their charges on a website may help GPs direct patients. Most patients won’t use it. The voluntary website that exists is a useless conservative government political initiative.
The idea of removing Medicare eligibility from a specialist who charges very high fees is quite reasonable but will only get a small number. The challenge is also to decide what is a very high fee.
Specialist fees force people onto the long queues at public hospitals. The Federal Government used to contribute 50% to state hospitals. That fell to less than 42% under the Howard Government and has never recovered despite Labor having the chance to rectify the issue. It has improved but not near enough.
Whilst Mr Butler has called for suggestions as to how to address the issue, there are already plenty on the table,” said Dr Woodruff. “It is now time to act.”
Dr Tim Woodruff
President
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