Dr Chris Irwin
RACGP President Candidate 2022
Dr Chris Irwin opinion piece on Voluntary Patient Enrolment (VPE) and why it will harm general practice.
Read it, share with your friends!
Policies
The past decade has been a dark time for general practice
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The medicare freeze initiated by Labor and continued by the Coalition
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Enforced bulk billing of telehealth - when every other single health provider - including nurse practitioners - can privately bill
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The vast increase in audit used as a tool of oppression and fear
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The initial healthcare homes concept - in which they didn't even attempt to hide the blatant funding cut and bureaucratic power grab. When this failed they followed up with voluntary enrollment for the over 70. This was to provide "all you can eat telehealth and prescriptions" for less than the cost of a monthly Netflix subscription.
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The Professional Services Review (PSR) overstepping its' remit and now trying to dictate how GPs provide care (the mental health debacle, the ear toilet fiasco, the PSR attempts at preventing GPs from performing flaps and grafts)
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The continued erosion and loss of PIP funding
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Primary Health Networks (PHNs) receiving primary care funding to simply duplicate what should happen in general practice, less efficiently and with greater cost
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State governments funding Urgent Care centres, in the main run by nursing practitioners, in direct competition for "low hanging general practice fruit" - once again at a far greater cost and greater risks to patients and an attack on continuity of care
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MBS taskforce recommending we now should refer any wound present for more than 4 weeks to a specialist... nurse practitioner? what is happening to general practice?
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The government siding with billion dollar pathology companies over general practices - banning us from changing pathology providers so we are left with little choice but to add millions to the bottom line of pathology companies through unfair rent reductions while GP owned small businesses face bankruptcy
Protect GPs
General Practice is in crisis and positive change needs to occur
Medicare rebates are worth half of what they would have been if they had just kept up with
inflation and we have the ongoing Medicare freeze by stealth.
Training intake for registrars has dropped 30%. If we don’t change the course of general
practice, it won’t even exist in its current form in ten years
We’ve had completely ineffective lobbying and advocacy – from the ECG rebate cuts to new
items that have enforced bulk billing as a requirement.
We need to Start professional lobbying of government
The Pharmacy guild has revenue far smaller than the RACGP and look at the massive impact
it has. Imagine if we had a well-funded professional lobby organization that acted for the
good of our patients and the GPs who care for them?
My pledge to you is that if I am elected your president every cent of my 250,000 dollar
salary will be spent on professional lobbying for GPs. That’s $250,000 more than the AMA
or RACGP have ever spent. We need change.
Fix the RACGP
- Link board remuneration to GP income and stop the hikes while GPs stagnate
- Ensure the RACGP does not make a profit from registrars or IMGs.
The RACGP should treat members with respect. The RACGP needs to exist for
members, not the other way around.
Fix Medicare
- Reclaim the 50% in lost Medicare funding over the past two decades for our patients
- Stop the constant item cuts
- Ensure Medicare is always indexed at least to CPI
Stop the pharmacy guild’s Queensland prescribing trial
Protect IMGs from exploitation
- Remove the requirement of Visas being linked to employer which causes many
IMGs to be exploited, overworked, and underpaid
- Reinstate proper government funding for new PEP so that IMGs and other
doctors are not forced to pay upwards of $25k a year
Stop Payroll Tax
- It is a cash grab by state governments to raise revenue after large covid debts it
will bankrupt many small to medium clinics
Stop the move to capitation
- Both AMA and RACGP have supported capitation
- This will be abused by government to cut GP funding even further, increase
pointless paperwork and increase bureaucratic control over the doctor – patient
relationship
Embrace GPs with special interests
- I want GPs who have special interests to be celebrated and encouraged. I want
skin GPs who have interest and training to prescribe Roaccutane. I want our scope of practice to be expanded and not slowly cut from all sides. I want to fight for GPs to get our ECG interpretation rebate back. Its the principle that matters.
The RACGP is a sleeping giant with the potential to do massive good, it just needs to be
awakened. Join us. Become part of the movement for positive change. Share this message
with every colleague who cares about general practice.
Protect General Practice
Strong GP-owned General Practice is the corner stone of excellent healthcare.
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We need to stop the department of health interfering with private rental agreements between primary care and pathology - helping billion dollar companies at the expense of the long term viability of GP owned medical centres. It is no coincidence the government is on the side of pathology groups who donate millions of dollars to both sides of politics every year.
Protect Australians
We know the best health care delivered to Australians is through their local GP
We know any other health model has poorer health outcomes, higher costs both for patient and government and potential worse health outcomes.
Through making sure Australian GPs and General Practices are protected, we are doing the absolute best to ensure the protection of Australian's and their health needs.
