Secondly, it confirms what seems to have been evident in this blog, and elsewhere, that there has been very little information provided to local communities about how the Medicare Locals will operate to improve their local health services. The big exception has been the Bankstown GP Division and their SWS Health Coalition.
Let's hope that the Federal Government budget focusses on what works and what does not when it comes to making cuts in health spending.
GPs: Axe Medicare locals to free up health funding
19th Apr 2011
JUST weeks out from what is predicted to be a tight Budget, GPs have pointed the way for the Gillard Government to reach its all-important surplus: freeze the rollout of super clinics and scrap Medicare Locals altogether.
Winding back incentive payments for pharmacists to dispense generic drugs also rated a high mention in MO’s latest national poll of 150 GPs.
Asked where health spending should be cut in the May Budget, 77% of GPs nominated the super clinics program – now $630.4 million deep in promised Commonwealth funding.
Nearly 40% recommended Medicare Locals for the chopping block, freeing up at least some of the $416 million that has so far been committed to their rollout, which begins on 1 July.
“If you took the super clinics money from Canberra, the leverage that you would get would train five times as many students and doctors,” AMA vice-president Dr Steve Hambleton said.
“Nobody can understand anything about whether super clinics are any benefit to the health system at all.”
Health economist Professor Gavin Mooney said the super clinics program was too advanced to be stopped, but “what could be possible and a good thing would be if Medicare Locals were delayed”.
The survey, conducted by Cegedim Strategic Data, also found 45% of GPs wanted to see a reduction in the $1.50 payment that pharmacists receive each time they substitute branded medicines with generic ones.
One area where some GPs and the Government appear to agree is the chronic disease dental scheme, which the Gillard Government claims is costing close to $63 million a month.
Nearly a quarter of those surveyed would be happy to see the scheme axed.
The poll comes as medical researchers held a series of rallies protesting widely tipped budget cuts to the sector of $400 million.
GPs were not short of ideas for where to spend the savings. Two-thirds nominated indexing MBS rebates to inflation as a priority.
Dr Hambleton said the rebates had been “systematically underdone” for years, making out-of-pocket expenses harder for patients to meet.
A quarter of GPs wanted MBS rebates for point-of-care testing (PoCT).
Robert Wells, director of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the ANU, said Government support for PoCT was inevitable, but a rebate now could undermine the new funding deal with pathologists. But given PoCT was both safe and convenient, he said, rebates for this should be supported.
This poll was conducted for Medical Observer by Cegedim Strategic Data research company.
