GP INSIGHTS
‘I am most concerned about patients being able to afford the different services that keep them healthy. Many of these are competing for the dollars that patients have including healthy food, health insurance, gap payments for doctors and allied health. There is often the need to decide between these things, worsening people’s overall health.’
‘Complex patient health issues such as chronic disease, mental health, menopause issues - these take time to deal with, and GPs are not remunerated well time wise. I have a lot of long consults and see fewer patients per day than my colleagues. However, I feel I must spend adequate time with each patient to provide quality care, otherwise I am not doing my job properly. There is pressure on me to push through more patients per day to keep practice revenue ticking over, and to earn an income similar to my peers, to make the pressures and responsibilities of being a doctor financially worthwhile. But I am not prepared to lower the standard of care to patients, and thus face some difficult professional decisions.’
‘Mental health, this is still underfunded and often many patients experiencing mental health issues are unable to afford help. They often turn to their GP to help, however, many GPs don't have the capacity to help given the perverse nature of Medicare which incentivises poor medical care. Management of chronic diseases – again having the time to manage these patients. When you look at potentially preventable hospitalisations the majority are patients with chronic disease complications that can be managed in general practice.’