Embattled GP reveals the biggest losers of Albo's Medicare overhaul

Daily Mail​

29-05-2025

Labor's plans to reform chronic health funding will cripple community medical practices and put Australia's most vulnerable at risk, a leading doctor has warned.
From July 1, the federal government will overhaul its approach to funding treatment for patients with chronic diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes as part of its reforms to Medicare
The government hopes the changes would 'simplify, streamline and modernise' the treatment of long-term diseases for both patients and doctors.
But health experts warn they will remove the incentives in place for publicly-funded GPs to deliver quality care to their patients.
Dr Kenneth McCroary, who chairs a prominent advocacy group for GPs in south-west Sydney, said the changes will halve the payments his doctors receive from the government for chronic disease treatment.
'We had these things called chronic health plans and chronic management plans and team-based care plans and mental health plans, which gave us a little bit more funding to spend more time with the patients and help look after them better,' he told Daily Mail Australia.
'And so on July 1, what they're going to do is going to cut the funding for those plans... so it means that instead of being funded to spend some actual quality time working with our patients... we're going to take a 50 per cent cut in the payments for that quality care.'
While he insisted the gutting of primary health was a bipartisan failure and not the fault of a single side of politics, he said former Labor champions of universal health care like Bob Hawke and Gough Whitlam would be 'rolling in their graves' over the way their party is managing Medicare.
The changes will reduce the list of chronic health services through practices can bulk-bill through Medicare and substitute a shortened list of eligible services, including the preparation and review of chronic condition management plans.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Michael Wright also recognised the risks of the changes when they were first flagged last year.
'We know these chronic condition item numbers are crucial to support the financial viability of many practices, and they are the most commonly bulk billed items,' he told NewsGP.
'We were worried that these changes would reduce funding for these important services. When we surveyed our members last year 69 per cent said they would have to start charging a fee rather than bulk bill patients.'
Dr McCroary estimated doctors at his practice would be lose out on funding to the equivalent of $40,000 to $45,000 per year.
He believes the changes will benefit only those clinics that make a business out of quick, superficial chronic disease treatments.
'How the hell am I going to keep my doors open now, unless I turn into one of the bulk-billing medical centers that sees ten people an hour in-and-out my door every six minutes?' he asked.
'It's not the kind of medicine I want to practice; it's not the kind of medicine my colleagues want to practice; it's not the kind of medicine that community needs to keep them well and healthy and alive and out of hospital; but it's what the government continues to incentivize as it continues to bludgeon away at the core of primary care.'
According to Victoria University, more than half of the Australian population lives with a chronic condition, a problem felt most acutely in less economically advantaged communities.
Dr McCroary observes the effects of chronic diseases on a daily basis as practice principal at Macarthur General Practice in Campbelltown.
'Just yesterday, a couple came in, he's got heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis. She's got epilepsy and osteoporosis and diabetes and asthma and that's just off the top of my head,' he said.
'And they'll tell me: 'Please bulk bill us, otherwise, you know we can't afford to come here. We're only alive because of the care we get from you guys.''
'They're our normal patient, they're the normal kind of people we see every day and now we're supposed to be looking after them at half the Medicare income.
When asked how he plans to keep his Campbelltown practice open, Dr McCroary expected to work two full time jobs: one with his patients and another advocating for change.
'We're just going to keep trying. But, yeah, it gets hard,' he said.