Exclusive new data from the nation's largest g-p college suggests the signature health policy of this election campaign could fail to deliver as promised. The government has pledged nine out of ten GP appointments will be free of charge by the end of the decade under an incentives scheme matched by the Coalition. But most of the doctors surveyed say they can't afford to make the change and patients will be disappointed.
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00:00An hour before Mudgee Medical Centre opens, patients are already lining up.
00:07This is my third day here waiting, so I've been here since 10 to 7 waiting because the line-up usually gets so big you've got no chance.
00:14The town in Central West New South Wales only has two GP clinics for the region's 20,000 residents.
00:20Sorry, we're completely booked out, nothing left at all.
00:23And bulk billing is limited.
00:25For me, I have to pay for myself but my little one, she gets bulk billed. It would be nice, a bit more government assistance.
00:32More government assistance is on offer from whichever party wins the next election.
00:37By 2030, we want 9 out of every 10 visits to the GP to be bulk billed.
00:46We will support them fixing the mess.
00:48But doctors say the $8.5 billion incentive scheme to expand bulk billing will leave them out of pocket.
00:55This practice says it would lose $21 per consult.
00:59There is an expense to running a practice that we can't afford if we bulk billed everybody.
01:04The Royal College of GPs has found two thirds won't bulk bill more patients.
01:09Not everyone is going to get bulk billed just because these incentives have been increased,
01:13because the Medicare rebates aren't covering the true costs of delivering care.
01:17The ABC also polled more than 800 doctors.
01:20At least 90% said they won't shift to exclusively bulk billing either.
01:25They worry it will increase the financial burden, reduce staff incomes,
01:29and incentivise shorter consults if rebates don't increase for longer appointments.
01:35But some clinic operators welcome the changes.
01:38We're expecting to move to about six in every 10 practices that will only bulk bill.
01:45That's versus one in every 10 practices today, so it's a six-fold increase.
01:50The calculations that we've done to show that practices will be better off are not based on six-minute medicine.
01:57They're based on exactly the type of consults that GPs are delivering right now.
02:02The reality is any increase in bulk billing will leave patients better off, and both sides of politics agree on that.
02:09They're based on that.
02:10They're based on that.
02:12They're based on that.