The growing doctor backlash to Medicare’s compliance programs is undermining patient care, the RACGP has told the Department of Health.

The college has issued the warning in response to the department’s latest compliance proposal, which involves linking doctors’ MBS claims histories to data from AHPRA, the PBS and Department of Home Affairs to identify potential rorts.

The RACGP says it is “not opposed” to the specific plan but warns it could add to “a growing perception that compliance activities are designed to monitor and target statistical outliers, as opposed to targeting fraudulent activity”.

“Providers are concerned that they may be identified as an outlier due to their patient population and be subjected to a stressful process of proving that they are not guilty of inappropriate billing.