Member for Farrer Sussan Ley is confident the Border will not be adversely impacted by a reduction in the Medicare rebate for doctors undertaking home visits.
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The rebate for medical deputising doctors dropped $30 on Thursday and will be cut again in January.
The largest provider of home visits, the National Home Doctor Service (13SICK), sent letters to Albury patients about closures, stating the changes had made recruitment of doctors ‘close to impossible’.
Ms Ley said there were a number of after-hours options on the Border.
“To put it bluntly, the government has been forced to tighten the rules to prevent an increasing number of what our local GPs might describe as ‘unnecessary call-outs’,” she said.
“We are not removing the rebate or taking it away, it is simply ensuring taxpayer dollars are being spent for the use intended, and for fully-trained GPs there is no alteration to the $129 payment at all.
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“The last thing we need is pressure on emergency departments, but in reality Albury-Wodonga is very well served for GPs along with bulk-billing and out-of-hours doctor options.”
Aside from 13SICK, there is Call Doctors Home Visit Services on the Border.
The Albury After Hours Clinic has also been running out of the hospital for the past decade and is staffed by GPs seven days a week.
Health Department officials told a senate estimates hearing this week there was “strong evidence” some after-hours providers were billing items as “urgent” when they were not, and that the change would likely not impact emergency departments.
Consumers Health Forum of Australia chief executive Leanne Wells said time would tell the impact.
“The College of GPs had concerns about the quality of some of the workforce working in these services, but at the end of the day access to something is better than nothing,” she said.
“We don’t know that services will be cut, that’s certainly what providers are saying … we’re concerned that leaves people without access to after-hours care.
“Let’s see where it’s at eight months down the track.”
The Murray Primary Health Network is receiving $1.98 million of federal funding for after-hours service activity to provide general practice support – via telehealth – for nursing staff dealing with presentations at an urgent after-hours care centre.
