Mark Butler has followed up on Canberra bulk-billing pledges with an EOI released today for 3 bulk-billed clinics in the territory.
The federal government has followed up on its promises to the ACT regarding bulk billing today, opening an Expression of Interest (EOI) to help establish new clinics.
Three new bulk billing GP clinics have been announced so far, with the EOI poised to find organisations interested in establishing the clinics to bring more doctors and bulk billing to the ACT.
This comes as part of the federal healthcare plan for the ACT backed by a $24.3 million package.
Canberra has historically struggled with providing bulk billing to patients, sitting at the lowest bulk billing rate of any state or territory, along with the second lowest number of GPs per capita.
Back in August, DoHDA had predicted that new Medicare bulk-billing incentives would triple the number of universal bulk billing practices across Australia, bringing GP bulk billing rates up to 90%.
However, these new Canberra clinics are set to face the same major challenge as Australian healthcare at large: workforce shortages.
“If we look at the Canberra market in terms of general practice, we have a significant workforce shortage, even within existing clinics,” AMA ACT president Dr Kerrie Aust told The Medical Republic.
“Many of the clinics around Canberra are constantly, actively trying to recruit GPs, GP practice nurses and other allied health while receiving funding to the vicinity of up to 3.2 million, or $3.3 million per clinic over the three years.
“We do anticipate that that there will be some challenges associated with recruitment.”
The EOI process has officially opened today, led by the ACT Primary Health Network, and will be open until 8 October.
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“The Albanese Government is delivering on its election commitment to support more bulk billing GPs in Canberra,” Health minister Mark Butler said.
“Canberra has longstanding issues with GP availability, and the three new GP clinics will address this discrepancy.
“Our government is determined to make it easier for Australians, including Canberrans, to find a bulk billing GP with 90 per cent of GP visits nationally to be bulk billed by 2030.”
The ACT AMA said it still had concerns over the funding model leaving out pre-existing clinics from sustainable funding.
“We hear consistently from GP practice owners that the margins are very tight, and that really the only way that bulk billing can be sustained is with significant financial investment from government,” Dr Aust told TMR.
“Unfortunately, this means that this funding is only going to new clinics.
“It’s not actually going to assist those existing clinics in helping to move that that dial of being able to provide financially viable, high quality general practice services.”
Speaking at a press conference in Canberra, Minister for Women Senator Katy Gallagher said the government hoped the grant money would entice more doctors to the capital.
“We knew we had, relatively speaking, lower numbers of GPs in the ACT, and that was presenting some specific challenges here,” she said.
“And so, together, we worked on some solutions to that, and that is what we’re kicking off today, which is the EOI, the expressions of interest through the local health network, Capital Health Network, who’ll go out to market with $10.5 million as an incentive to bring three new totally bulk billing clinics to the ACT.
“We know that this model works. It’s worked in other parts of the country, particularly in areas where there’s a GP shortage or lower bulk billing rates.”
