Tag: funding

Copayment Shmopayment

Published on by Sam HeardLeave a comment

DSC00815

I must confess that I cannot see any benefit from the proposed Medicare copayment either as a price signal or a revenue saver. And I stress that I am loath to write off any approach to improving health care in Australia. It is difficult to think of a blunter, more chaos inducing instrument to apply to Medicare. How will it save money? Largely from committed general practices located in deprived areas – the more committed the higher the saving.

The most lucrative savings will arise from pressure on practices to accept the lower bulk billing rebate – this will save $7 per visit. Let’s face facts, GPs already do this for the majority of patients; in poorer areas GPs will have to continue to do so at a very high rate because many people will be unable to or will refuse to pay. What will we do for a 29 year old who has no income and new onset diabetes? How will we manage an infection in someone who drinks their weekly income on pay day, or a refugee who has no income. In many Aboriginal Health Clinics it will be devastating. Please imaging living in poor over crowed housing on the edge of a town or in a remote area without public transport or any other facilities, with high prices for all consumables and getting the same income as a person living in a well resourced urban area. In the NT discretionary spending may be little more than a single visit to the clinic. The $7 (plus test on costs) will be a care killer. The primary care ‘Closing the Gap’ initiative has provide free health care and has had a big impact where I work. The copayment will reverse these gains immediately. Government Ck-Ching, primary care Ck-Chang.

The safety net is a massive administrative issue – $70 a year limit for an individual ($490 for a family of 7). How on earth will this be managed? Such approaches may have worked while the money was reimbursed but this is a payment at the time of service, prior to service for many I suspect. Who will keep tabs on who has reached $70? What a nightmare. We have had Medicare fraud with sharing of Medicare cards for some time. This will certainly add to incentives to share cards, only presenting with cards that have reached the limit.

The Corporate Practices who are profit focused will be working on ways to generate the same income without adding disincentives to patients. Such practices appear to be the primary target of this copayment but I am equally sure they will be best placed to minimise the loss of income. We are likely to see a major escalation of SIP payments and payments for non-attendance items in response to this. Government will get their dollars back, but new leakage is likely to occur. Successful approaches will put pressure on surrounding practices to match them.

I am the first to admit that there is wastage in primary care and that we do more harm that we intend. I am very interested in spending Medicare dollars where it is likely to return greater benefit. I have already raised one such approach in a previous blog Saving Medicare. But I do not think that the proposed copayment will do anything but harm in many areas of this country. I would like to work with Government to come up with focused responses to the use of Medicare funds that are wasteful. Our College is the vehicle to do this and has developed the slogan #CoPayNoWay  using social media – the top tweets can be found here.

Watch out – Medicare Shmedicare.

Saving Medicare

Published on by Sam Heard1 Comment
WP_20121225_008
Consider carefully

I personally worry at the waste in healthcare and how we can save on Medicare. Unless we do something we will have to start thinking about how to save Medicare itself. To give an example: prior to the arrival of bulk billing practices in Darwin a few years ago we had one radiology provider and a couple of pathology companies. We now have 4 radiology providers and a few extra pathology providers. These also bulk bill. So I can now order unlimited blood tests and radiology without cost to myself, the practice or the consumer (a more appropriate name in this setting). I can get an MRI in 15 minutes and almost any test apart from an ultrasound within the hour.

I can’t imagine the actual increase in costs – is anyone imagining? I do see the result of confused patients with multiple positive obscure serological tests and a cascade of radiology – each new test suggested by the radiologist to rule out the sinister nature of some incidental finding on the previous view. Further tests require further brief visits while time heals almost all things. Dollars all round – nobody’s money.

This is not ideal and the opportunity cost of unnecessary attendances, laboratory tests and radiology investigations is probably massive in terms of non-health fields such as housing and other basic services. So why don’t we come up with some alternatives for consideration. A $7 co-payment  doesn’t seem to do the job at all and seems to have few advocates. Here is an idea of my own which has had as little thought as the co-payment but might help funds go where they do more good.

Any attendance resulting in issuing of a private medical certificate for a period off work of less than 7 days will not be billable to Medicare. This would apply at the time of the visit or at any point in the future (to avoid being able to issue the medical certificate at a later date in order to claim the fee) but would not apply to parent or carer certificates for children.

Would this reduce medicare claims? Would it reduce the time off work for minor illness? Could it work? Would it be open to gaming? Let me know what you think.