President’s update: workshops, meetings with the department, private health and more

Hello, and happy Friday! I’m momentarily back home after a few days in Canberra following our terrific Darwin visit last week, and I’m Canberra-bound again this weekend — the puffer jacket is getting a workout at the moment!

On Tuesday I participated in the Health Services Daily ‘Towards One Healthcare System’ workshop. This was a valuable afternoon featuring a veritable ‘who’s who’ of healthcare leaders from across different parts of the system. There was recognition that in the federated health system we have, it takes real effort and systems to avoid working in silos. It's clear that policy makers must put the patient at the centre of everything they do, along with provider experience, to make sure we can deliver the increasingly complex care our population needs. 

It was great to catch up with RACGP President Dr Michael Wright, our very own Council of Rural Doctors Chair Dr Ian Kamerman, the Australian Digital Health Agency’s Chief Clinical Advisor (Medicine) Dr Amandeep Hansra and so many more. 

While in Canberra I had the opportunity to meet with Bettina McMahon, the CEO of Healthdirect, which provides a growing tele-triage service to many parts of the health system, as well as the online symptom checker. They’ve also been tasked with expanding and rebranding to 1800Medicare next year and we talked about the importance of continuing their model of linking back to the usual GP whenever possible, communicating with the usual GP, and ensuring their focus remains on connecting patients to appropriate care, rather than providing care that could be accessed elsewhere. 

I also met with the Secretary of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Blair Comley. We had a health-packed election and it's his job (as essentially the CEO of the health department) to put all of that into action. In addition to discussing implementation of the election/budget announcements, we talked about ensuring MyMedicare gets the support it needs to thrive and enable a strong relationship between patients and their usual GP. We also talked about the sustainability of the private health sector including private hospital viability.

As I’m sure you all saw, earlier this week the Grattan institute released a report into non-GP specialist fees. This is an issue of growing concern for governments and I don’t think it will be the last coverage we see. We cannot shy away from the data showing that nearly a million Australians delay or skip healthcare due to cost. But as we highlighted in the media, and actually the report does a reasonable job of showing, the contributing factors and solutions are complex. For non-GP care we have a public and a private system. And yet, investment in our public specialist clinics has been neglected in many parts of the country, leaving patients with no option other than to seek private care (or in other cases wait a clinically unacceptable time). We have shortages of medical staff and no national strategy to address this. We have an MBS that has failed to keep pace with the cost of providing care. Fee transparency is important, but should not be characterised as “naming and shaming”. The vast majority of doctors are doing the best they can to keep fees affordable for patients. 

To truly address the costs facing patients we need to invest in our public system, review the MBS, and create an independent health workforce agency to address shortages. I said all of this to the media over and over this week, and will continue repeating it to health department officials in Canberra too! 

And lastly some great news. After years of AMA advocacy the wound consumables scheme finally kicked off this week. This will see older Aussies with chronic diabetes wounds better supported to access dressings through their usual GP. I’m so glad to see this roll out, and we’ll keep pushing for eligibility to be expanded.

Next week I’ll be back in Canberra for our Colleges and Societies meeting before continuing the President’s Roadshow in Brisbane and the Gold Coast — so if you’re nearby, please join me for dinner! (Contact our team at membership@ama.com.au for more info!)

I’ve no doubt we’ve a lot to talk about next week and I look forward to updating you on all things CAS & QLD then! Until then, happy doctor-ing.