The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) urges the Federal Government to find a way to lift the damaging freeze on patient Medicare rebates during its Budget deliberations in the coming months.
The call forms part of the RACGP’s 2017-18 pre-budget submission, which outlines three key strategies that will improve patient care through increased investment in general practice services.
RACGP President Dr Bastian Seidel said disinvestment in general practice continues, despite general practice being the cornerstone of the Australian healthcare system.
“Nearly 86% of the Australian population saw a GP in the last year, yet only 7% of health funding goes into general practice”.
According to the Final Budget Outcome 2015-16, there was a $177 million underspend in medical services for the 2015-16 financial year.
“Just $150 million on average each year would see patient rebates for general practice services indexed at 2%, providing some breathing space to a sector hard hit by the freeze so far”, Dr Seidel said.
“The $177 million underspend in medical services for the last financial year is more than enough to lift the freeze for GP patient rebates. The funding is available,” Dr Seidel said.
Dr Seidel reiterated that failure to invest in general practice patient services will increase the overall cost of the Australian healthcare system.
“We know that the preventive nature of general practice work not only improves and saves lives, it also saves the Government billions of dollars in emergency department admissions” Dr Seidel said.
The 2017-18 pre-budget submission also calls on the Federal Government to provide adequate funding for the Health Care Homes trials, saying practices need to be properly supported to participate in the trial.
“The RACGP has welcomed the Health Care Homes trial, but general practices cannot be expected to undergo significant change in health service delivery without a commensurate increase in funding support ”, Dr Seidel said.
The pre-budget submission also sets out clear and achievable priorities for investing in general practice research to support better patient health outcomes.
“Many GP research programs have lost or will soon lose funding”.
“Inadequate evidence relevant to primary healthcare hinders GPs’ efforts to provide evidence-based care, as guidelines developed from research in other settings are often not appropriate for general practice patients” Dr Seidel said.
The RACGP 2017-18 pre-budget submission is available on the RACGP website.