The Australian
Minister for Health and Liberal MP for Flinders Greg Hunt tweeted this on 16 August 2018:
Here are the facts on Medicare:— Greg Hunt (@GregHuntMP) August 16, 2018
✅Today’s Medicare data shows a record bulk-billing rate of 86.1%
✅This is 4% higher than anything Labor could achieve
✅Almost 9 out of 10 trips to the GP are free
✅Funding for Medicare this year alone is $5.5 billion higher than Labor put in
So what is
all this self-congratulatory chest-beating about?
According to
the Department of Human Services in
2016–17 a total of 24.9 million people were enrolled in Medicare.
In 2017-18 Medicare
recorded a total 419,852,601 Schedule Items on which Medicare benefits were
paid.
This figure
represents on average 1,672,091 items per 100,000 people.
According to
Heath Minister Hunt the Medicare
bulk billing rate in 2017-18 stood at 86.1 per cent of the total number
of Medicare benefits claimed, leaving 13.9 per cent of Medicare benefits to be
claimed by the patient.
Based on 2016-17
figures this would indicate in excess of 13.3 million of these Medicare
benefits were claimed online by the patient.
Medicare also
recorded 3,318,396 payments of Schedule
Item 3 General Practitioner Attendances To Which No Other Item Applies,
which is a medical service for which there is a 100% Medicare benefit.
That’s an
average 13,216 items per 100,000 males and females between 0-4 years and 85
years or over.
However, none
of these statistics reveal the number of GP or specialist doctor medical
practices which charge patients an upfront amount above the scheduled Medicare benefit
amount.
According to
the Royal
Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) the real percentage of patients who had all their GP visits
bulk billed during 2016–17 was an est. 66 per cent.
Which meant that an estimated 34 per cent of GP patients in that
financial year paid an upfront cost that might not have been able to be fully
claim from Medicare.
The Australian Medical Association (NSW) in
a 2018 statement suggests
that these patients are likely to be paying an average of $48.69 in
out-of-pocket fees.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
states in its Health
Services Series Number 80 that
in 2016-17 there were 7.8 million attendances at public hospital emergency
departments and “at the conclusion of
clinical care in the emergency department, 61% of presentations reported an
episode end status of Departed without being admitted or referred”, which indicates that this percentage may
contain an unspecified number of individuals who attended a public hospital
emergency department because a bulk billing GP was not practicing in their
local area and they were not able to readily afford an upfront fee or
additional out-of-pocket expenses.
ABC News reported* on 17 August 2018 that:
> 1.3 million people delay seeing a doctor because of the cost;
> 1 in 2 Australian patients faced out-of-pocket costs for non-hospital Medicare services, with the median cost sitting at $142 per person;
> almost 35 per cent of out-of-pocket expenses were spent on specialist services, while almost 25 per cent went to GP gap payments; and
> a further 12 per cent was spent on diagnostic imaging services, like radiology.
Greg Hunt's tweet has definitely avoided facing the Medicare elephant in the room.
* Based on MyHealthyCommunities: Patients' out-of-pocket spending on Medicare services 2016–17 released August 2018.
ABC News reported* on 17 August 2018 that:
> 1.3 million people delay seeing a doctor because of the cost;
> 1 in 2 Australian patients faced out-of-pocket costs for non-hospital Medicare services, with the median cost sitting at $142 per person;
> almost 35 per cent of out-of-pocket expenses were spent on specialist services, while almost 25 per cent went to GP gap payments; and
> a further 12 per cent was spent on diagnostic imaging services, like radiology.
Greg Hunt's tweet has definitely avoided facing the Medicare elephant in the room.
* Based on MyHealthyCommunities: Patients' out-of-pocket spending on Medicare services 2016–17 released August 2018.
