While we have all been focused on the Federal Government’s attempt to reinflate GP bulk-billing, a few weeks ago, The Medical Journal of Australia published Professor Brendan Murphy’s essay on the less discussed issue of the financial barriers to non-GP specialist care.

So far, the government’s solution has not gone much further than a form of no-name and no-shame by offering patients (and referring GPs) its much-maligned Medical Costs Finder, a website where the identities of specialists and their actual fee schedules are largely absent.

It hasn’t bothered much with fixing rebates either and certainly not toyed with the ludicrous notion of bulk-billing incentives, tripled or otherwise.

But Professor Murphy, health executive, nephrologist and former boss of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, remains unsettled by some of the fees many patients are now faced with.