Every now and again, GPs are abused in ways intended to suggest that, in the medical world, they are bottom of the food chain. 

Take, for example, the Medicare freeze. As if a six-year freeze wasn’t a hard enough pill to swallow, salt was then rubbed deeply into the wound when, last year, the Federal Government dressed up a menial indexation-level rise in GP consult rebates while reducing bulk-billing incentives for 7000 regional GPs.  

For most bulk-billing and many mixed-billing practices, this equated to a net deficit. All while costs of running a practice continued to rise. 

Another demeaning example of our lowly status in the medical universe was the mandatory bulk-billing of telehealth consults at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, alongside the more recent COVID-19 vaccination process, where GPs had their billing rights dictated from on high.