Thread: Your Doctor - an opinion I think worth considering

Medicare rebates for GPs have been frozen for several years, but their costs keep rising, so it's not surprising GPs are putting up charges to cover the difference.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Medicare rebates for GPs have been frozen for several years, but their costs keep rising, so it's not surprising GPs are putting up charges to cover the difference.

Yes bulk billing will go the same way as the dinosaurs.

Agree the nurses could be allowed to do more,I have found often the nurses know as much if not more about a problem than the attending Doctor,particularly in regional areas.

Hi,
I would rather pay my hospital insurance to the hospital for cover, rather than a bunch of shiny bums in a corporate office.
Cheers

We usually have 1 or 2 Nurse Practitioners at one of our clinics + a Doctor 2 weeks on 1 week off.
I prefer to see the Nurses because at least 1 is always here & they have been here a long while so know me & my history.
The Doctors change a lot.
The hospital seems to struggle for Nurses & Doctors.
The hospital is state funded, the clinic is federal.
Jonesfam

This is based purely on my observations and may be different in other areas but my GP clinic when we were living in Darwin started to bulk bill several years before I left and it went from being able to get an appointment with my GP very easily and very rarely did the allocated time slot blow out by 5mins, to being making an appointment for a week later as nothing was available with my GP any earlier and when I did turn up I usually waited an extra 30mins sometimes longer.
About 9 months before I left they went back to non bulk billing and low and behold it went back to the days of old.
Now I know nothing of how the system works but it seems bulk billing altho convenient plays a big part in putting pressure on a GP clinic. So if there are very few clinic options then I can see this not only overloads the clinic but surely those GP in that clinic.
Cheers Bulletman

Originally Posted by austastar

Hi,
I would rather pay my hospital insurance to the hospital for cover, rather than a bunch of shiny bums in a corporate office.
Cheers

I pay the medicare levy surcharge for this reason.

Originally Posted by Arch

I pay the medicare levy surcharge for this reason.

Us too.
Don

Originally Posted by austastar

Hi,
I would rather pay my hospital insurance to the hospital for cover, rather than a bunch of shiny bums in a corporate office.
Cheers

Fully understand that yet I do see times when it fails in a major and hurtful way.

Knees, hips, plastic surgery (Elective Surgery) and many other "hospital Out patients services" from public hospitals are usually very very long waiting lists.

A bike riding lady in hospital with me is in the public waiting list line again and again and again even now 3 years after our injuries. She was hurt significantly less than I was. She is struggling to get the care needed in the public system as she had no insurance at all. She was as fit as I was before. That is not true now due to the public out patients care she is still waiting for.

All most every one with chronic pain/mobility in those public waiting list suffers. Those with insurance going private cut that time frame by years often.

Public Emergency care is just fanatic in the public sector for heart attacks and cancer!

I love Royal Melbourne Hospital for sticking me back together. I did need help which was urgent but not an emergency an I could not get if from them. I broke one of the screws holding the titanium rod in my leg (tibia). Letters and multiple phone calls to the hospital where completely ignored! The helpful phone person was honest that the surgical area phone was never answered as they where to busy!

Perhaps had I called an ambulance it may have been different. Insurance had me fixed very quickly in the Private sector.

I get to see many people in the "No Insurance" group who really wish they had insurance for chronic but not emergency injuries and issues. That is a place not to be if you can avoid it.

This is possibly much more important as we get older and more likely to have chronic issues!

Not suggesting this is OK- It is true and known often after the chronic but not emergency injuries and issues are found!