The cost of seeing a doctor is going to rise, but the federal goverment insists it has nothing to do with the goverment freeze on reimbursement.
AMA, the Australian medical association, accused goverment of freezing claims, recommending a A $2 to A $78 increase in the price of a standard consultation in November. Medicare claims were frozen at A $37 until 2020, saving nearly 1 billion on goverment spending.
"freezing is a great burden for family doctors working for work," AMA Vice-Chairman, Tony Barone, said. "Doctors cannot continue to absorb the rise in the cost of providing high-quality services year after year."
But Health Secretary Sussan Ley says doctors can decide for themselves how much to charge.
She said the announcement before the prime minister election that no one needed to pay more for GP because of a freeze on reimbursement had received support from the public, as evidenced by the record high rate of patients who went to see doctors who had been reimbursed by swiping cards to reimburse bulk billing.
However, Dr. Bartone says it is inevitable that many family doctors are now reconsidering whether patients should be treated on a Medicare card without charging a fee.
