Medicare’s indexation fail has stripped GP patients of some $8.6 billion: AMA
It says the government should recalculate the MBS indexation rate based on average weekly earnings and inflation
Successive governments should have paid out billions more in rebates for level B consultations over the past 30 years by linking indexation to wage growth and inflation, the AMA has calculated.
It says the average indexation rate across the MBS over the three decades has been just 1.1%, while the CPI and average weekly earnings have risen by 2.4% and 3.5% a year, respectively.
The result has been GPs missing out on $8.6 billion over the lifetime of the level B consultation item, says AMA president Professor Steve Robson.
“What we found clearly illustrates why the state of general practice is so dire,” he said.
