Given the silence from the Department of Health and Aged Care in recent weeks, no-one should be surprised that reform of GP care plans and team care arrangements has been shelved.

The changes, which GPs had long called for, marked the biggest shakeup of Medicare’s chronic disease funding in 20 years — no more team care arrangements and new, identical rebates for both drawing up and reviewing the care plans.

But department officials got to the point where they had five weeks to nail down rebates underpinning a billion dollars of GP funding a year, without freaking out medical groups or, indeed, their colleagues at the Treasury.

According to AMA vice-president Dr Danielle McMullen, all the other changes in this reform were ready to go on 1 November.