Well didn’t the guestimate of Medicare rorting by doctors put the cat among the pigeons?
While the current (and ageing) GP workforce is haemorrhaging at the rate of knots, it’s a double whammy as medical students increasingly shun that career path.
But it is difficult to see how anything in Margaret Faux’s PhD thesis into Medicare billing gave substance to the headline figure of $8 billion that was said to have been wrongly siphoned out of Medicare by doctors.
After originally hedging his bets by neither accepting nor dismissing the media reports, Federal health minister Mark Butler later ruled there was no evidence to back the $8b claim, but has since enlisted a health economist to delve into Medicare anyway.
There seems to be at least some consensus that the system is broken.
One thing that is not broken is the travel bug, which has been reignited after three years of pent-up demand. This month, we look at travel medicine and what it means in COVID-times.
There seems to be at least some consensus that the system is broken.
A recent survey commissioned by a pharmaceutical company found that only 15% of Australians planning to travel overseas had thought about getting any health travel advice. Fewer than one-third thought it was a good idea to discuss it with their doctor.
This is despite ongoing reports of West Australians visiting their favourite overseas destination – which we sometimes forget is in a developing country – and getting the dreaded Bali belly.
And as we digest the full implications of the Medibank data theft, we also examine what is happening with how our health data is collected and used.
While the pandemic broke down some resistance to the use of My Health Record by consumers and practitioners, it is still a bumpy road ahead.