With all of us having to consider how to adjust billing practices to preserve our own sanity, and how to counter rising costs and ensure the sustainability of the clinics we work in, the ethical dilemma of determining who still requires bulk-billing is another key issue we are faced with.

For me, the obvious choice are the group home patients I see, even if many of these patients do still find the funding to afford cigarettes and gambling.

But shouldering this near ‘pro bono’ work comes with certain challenges that are time consuming and arduous, yet are dictated to us by bureaucrats that we never meet.

These chores of general practice give me flashbacks of being a minion on the bottom rung of the hospital ladder.