As if the continued demands and stresses posed by COVID wasn’t enough to add a dent or two in the armour of general practice, things could — and did — get worse in 2022.
This year could be regarded as the “annus horribilis” for GPs, as a failing Medicare system suddenly became the fault of rorting doctors – if you believe the headlines.
A right royal mess
That Latin-derived phrase – meaning a terrible or disastrous year – was made famous by Queen Elizabeth II in a speech delivered 30 years ago, at the end of the year 1992 which was marked by scandal and disaster for the British royal family.
The Queen’s remarks made international news, and the phrase subsequently entered the lexicon to describe a year of great personal or political misfortune.
As it turns out, 2022 was somewhat of an annus horribilis for the Queen too, when she succumbed to old age in September and left behind a splintered family, some of whom chose to air their grievances on Netflix.
A tough year for GPs
Back in general practice land, there was already discontent early in the year as bulk-billing rates starting to go into free-fall. With the extra burden of COVID vaccinations and positive cases to manage, GPs struggled to provide good primary care while keeping their practice lights on.
While the Federal Government was making noises about ‘strengthening’ Medicare, a bomb was dropped in the form of the so-called Medicare rorts scandal, which alleged that about $8 billion had been wrongly siphoned from the health system by doctors.
It was difficult to see how anything in Margaret Faux’s PhD thesis into Medicare billing gave substance to the headline figure of $8 billion but that did not stop doctors, particularly GPs, from coming into the firing line.
Where’s the money?
The fall-out from the claims included a pile-on of criticism about greedy GPs, and the timing only weeks before a Federal budget announcement meant that the lack of any significant increase to the Medicare rebate got little media or public traction.
Although 2022 has arguably been one of the toughest years for primary care in Australia, it has also been a year of doggedness and survival. Perhaps GPs are used to that?
Let’s hope 2023 is more rewarding for them, in more ways than one.
The Medical Forum team