More GPs leaving rural practices, but officials defend IMG rule changes
The effect of the rule change is "not a stampede, but an ongoing trickle", the RDAA says.
Officials have revealed the number of doctors who abandoned rural practices after new workforce rules let more IMGs bill Medicare from regional cities.
In mid-2022 the government declared all regional centres — category 2 in the Modified Monash Model — would count as areas of need, allowing newly arrived IMG doctors to bill Medicare under the 10-year moratorium.
The RDAA decried the decision, saying it would cause a rural doctor exodus.
Bureaucrats now say that 72 doctors moved from a rural or remote location (Modified Monash Model 3-7) to a regional centre across the whole of 2022.
