Patients at Dubbo face a new $20 fee hike for seeing their GP when changes to Medicare, introduced to save billions of dollars for the federal health budget, begin to take effect from next week.
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Under the regulation, unveiled last month, Medicare will pay $20.10 less for consultations lasting six to 10 minutes.
Privately-billed patients have been used to receiving a $37.05 rebate for short visits when requiring a new prescription or blood pressure check, for example.
From Monday, Medicare will pay just $16.95 for the briefest class of consultations, but a spokesman for health minister Sussan Ley said the changes to consultations under 10 minutes were designed to better reflect the time a doctor spends with their patient.
While privately-billed patients would have increased out-of-pocket costs, bulk-billing GPs could absorb the difference, but the Australian Medical Association (AMA) has warned that was unlikely to happen because Medicare payments were already falling behind the cost of running a practice.
A general practitioner in a regional city has joined a chorus of doctors warning of serious consequences results for both patients and the health industry.
Dr Ian Kamerman, who has a general practice at Tamworth and is an AMA NSW representative, estimated that with the move by the government, he would have to trim $250,000 from his expenses per year each year just to "tread water".
He said "every general practice across Australia" would have to drastically reduce expenses, a forecast that did not bode well for general practices at Dubbo.
He said he was unaware of government support being pulled with just six weeks' notice in any other area.
"They wouldn't do it to agriculture, mining or manufacturing," he said.
"Why do it to a series of small businesses (like general practices).
"A lot will not survive without drastic changes."
The GP said the consequences would be far-reaching.
"For a government to take that approach, they're asking for business closure, inability of patients to access medical care and job losses," Dr Kamerman said.
He said there was no future in bulk-billing and the changes were the "government telling us to stop it or go broke".
A spokesman for Health Minister Sussan Ley said the changes to consultations under 10 minutes were designed to better reflect the time a doctor spends with their patient and to encourage longer GP consultations with patients for better health outcomes.
"Under the current rules, a GP can access Medicare rebates for up to 20 minutes, even if their patient is in and out the door in six minutes," the spokesman said.
