Two-dollar medicine? What GPs sacrifice by doing longer consults
New figures show a threefold variation in Medicare money per minute based on consult length
It’s universally known among GPs that every minute of a longer consultation under Medicare means losing income.
But new figures from the Grattan Institute illustrate how bad it can be when the system is financially engineered to literally promote six-minute medicine.
When measured in Medicare dollars per minute, even the shortest Level C consultations are rebated at half the rate of a short Level B, while taking any consultation that’s not a Level A to its maximum length means a rebate of just $2 per minute.
Source: Grattan Institute.
