Rockingham businessman claims Medicare Urgent Care Clinics just a ‘stop-gap’, won’t fix systemic health issues

A Rockingham chief executive running two general practices that exclusively bulk-bill patients has spoken out against the Federal Government’s Medicare urgent care clinic model, calling it a short-sighted “stop-gap” measure. Professor Martin Samy runs GP clinics in Rockingham and Canning Vale, with a third soon to open in Harvey. Each GP working at his clinics bulk-bills their patients, and he says he “comfortably” runs his practices on what he gets from the current rebate structure. A professor of corporate social responsibility, Dr Samy said the Federal Government’s urgent care clinic model is a re-packaged version of the previous government’s funding for urgent care centres. The former Coalition government announced $28 million in its 2019-20 budget to fund four urgent care centres in WA in a bid to ease pressure on emergency departments, adding to the three existing bulk-billing centres run by St John WA. But the funding was only earmarked for a four-year trial and in May 2022 St John WA announced it would begin charging all patients attending its clinics. Now, the Albanese Government has allocated $358m over five years from 2022-23 to fund 58 Medicare urgent care clinics, with seven in WA, all of which will bulk-bill. “Our Medicare urgent care clinics mean more families in Western Australia will get top-quality care from a nurse or a doctor without having to wait in a hospital emergency department,” Mr Albanese said. Dr Samy said this measure “will only be a stop-gap” and won’t last. “It will be the same as St John WA (urgent care centres),” he said. “This funding should have been incentives and grants to better fund GP clinics (to do this care).” While Dr Samy agreed primary health care should be bulk-billed and access to urgent care needed to be expanded, he said these clinics are just “moving the burden from one place to another”. “We need long-term solutions to meet primary care needs,” he said. State and Federal governments should be working towards subsidising the costs of primary care clinics, including staff wages, to address the growing operating costs that are pushing GPs to stop bulk-billing, he said. CommBank Health research conducted in late 2022 found the majority of practices were reconsidering their billing models, with more than half of the practices surveyed already reducing its proportion of bulk-billing services. Less than one in five practices committed to maintaining bulk-billing. “I believe Medicare bulk-billing is the right of every Australian,” Dr Samy said. “But (Australia’s) system has fostered a poor culture.” Since then, the Albanese Government has announced a $3.5b tripling of its bulk-billing incentives to address the sharp decline in bulk-billing practices. The incentives will cover face-to-face and telehealth consultations, including home visits for homebound patients and consultations in residential aged care facilities. The government will also trial MyMedicare, a new patient registration model, to enable blended funding models to better serve patient needs and provide more tailored care. It will be voluntary and patients will be able to register with their preferred practice and care team.