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One million Australians missing specialist doctor appointments due to cost, report finds
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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IMO there needs to be some regulation around this, a simple measure would be to tie Medicare payments to a pricing structure(eg. a specialist can only charge the Medicare rebate + 20%).
If a specialist wants to charge more then that's fine but the patient(or insurance) will have to pay the full cost
Seeing a professor for a complex health issue: $600
Medicare rebate: $80
Private health: $0
Medicare needs to do a LOT better for that to work
Yes, obviously medicare would need to increase the rebate and private insurance fees would necessarily increase(as they would now be actually paying for care rather than acting a a gatekeeping mechanism)
Rebate for a short consult with a specialist is $81.55, a long consult is $236.65.
The title professor indicates that they hold a teaching position and says nothing about their clinical skill. Plenty of specialists take the piss and leverage the title to charge ridiculous fees.
In my experience as a GP a reasonable standard fee for a specialist is around $300 with $80 back from Medicare. So yes the Medicare rebate would need to increase substantially but I doubt more than we will save when AUKUS falls through. It is within the capacity of a government with the right priorities. Also increasing the availability of public specialists would be a good companion policy.
All we need to do is tax the miners, and put the money toward healthcare, and whatever else we want with the money left over.
Nationalise the mines and be done with it
Would be great if they put it down as a long consult, I was there for quite a while with three "fellows" each checking me too. I was referred to a leading university clinic from a specialist ($$$ again) but I am sure there are plenty of profs or similar gouging because of an academic title
To be clear most professors are senior in their field and usually indicates research as well as teaching, I was in a cantankerous mood this morning. But regardless Medicare needs to take access to specialist treatment seriously.