A primary health network has backflipped on its advice to GPs to write named referrals, which allow hospitals to shift the cost of outpatient care onto Medicare.   

The guidance, issued by the Central and Eastern Sydney Primary Health Network in a newsletter last week, comes amid increased scrutiny on the practice.

In its newsletter on 23 March, the primary health network (PHN) issued a “reminder for GPs to specify clinicians on their referrals”, adding it was “important” to name the clinician rather than the clinic”.

The message was withdrawn two days later amid outrage from GPs, some of whom took to social media to call out the PHN’s advice as a directive to rort Medicare.