[UPDATED 15.03.2024 to correct titles of Adj Prof Karen Price and Associate Prof Louise Stone]
Associate Prof Magdalena Simonis AM, Adj Prof Karen Price, RACGP President Nicole Higgins and Associate Prof Louise Stone were interviewed by ABC News concerning female GPs donating their time and therefore their money.
Extract from ABC News [7 March 2024]
When [Adj Prof] Karen Price first started working as a GP she chose a medical clinic in a lower-socio economic area of Melbourne’s south-east.
“It offered great variety, your work had a lot more scope and you were an indispensable part of the community,” Dr Price said.
But after several years, she was seeing more and more patients for appointments covering mental health, pregnancy, and women’s health issues, but wasn’t being paid the same as doctors taking on general physical health appointments.
“I was doing longer and longer consults, and watched my earnings fall because when you provide complex care, it takes time,” she said.
“It was painful to know I was working on more complex work and earning considerably less than my colleagues.”
In general practice, doctors face financial consequences for time-intensive appointments.
“I left the practice because I couldn’t maintain an income. If you want to bulk bill and provide a quality service for complex issues, you are penalised,” Dr Price said.
Dr Price, who is the immediate past president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), and other doctors nationwide argue that recent changes in GP incentivisation for bulk billing have widened the gap in Medicare payments for various appointments, exacerbating the gender pay disparity among doctors.
Bulk billing incentives not increased for mental health and antenatal care
Last year, the federal government tripled the Medicare incentive paid to GPs to bulk bill patients with healthcare cards and pension cards, and those under 16 years of age.
It means a clinic is paid a bonus of about $24 — about $20 of which is passed on to the doctor — for every patient a physician bulk bills. That payment is in addition to the Medicare rebate GP clinics receive.
Data the government released in January showed the rate of bulk billing by GPs had increased by 2.1 per cent in the first two months since the increase was introduced.
But the $3.5 billion investment excluded appointments for mental health and antenatal care — the bulk of which were taken on by female GPs, according to data collected by the RACGP.
Continue reading the full ABC News article here >>
Source photo and article: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-07/gps-say-medicare-bulk-bill-incentives-make-gender-pay-gap-worse/103526758
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