‘Medicare trip-wires and quicksand’: GP stops seeing patients in aged care
Dr Nick Tellis says the new GP Aged Care Incentive is failing.
Dr Nick Tellis says he has stopped treating patients in residential aged care after almost 25 years, blaming the new GP Aged Care Incentive’s “soul-destroying” bureaucracy.
The incentive, launched last July, pays $300 to the GP and $130 to the practice per patient for completing eight visits and two care-planning services in a 12-month period.
It is intended to revitalise access to care for some of the most vulnerable patients in the health system.
However, Dr Tellis told AusDoc he had regularly treated around 50 patients in aged care but that his work was now “close to zero”.
