Doctors seek benefit increase

Press, 30 May 1981, Page 6

Doctors seek benefit increase

The group of Canterbury doctor's which seeks to establish’a standard medical fee wants the Government to increase the general medical service benefit for patients. .A/ meeting of the group earlier this week was attended by 100 general practitioners out of 160 in Canterbury's It decided. to set a guideline fee of $11.25 for a consultation, favouring <-'a standard fee to prevent possible overcharging of ’ patients. /■•"/' A spokesman for the group,'Dr P.< W.Law, yesterday emphasised that the guideline- wasjiot an attempt io become? wealthy at the expense of < the : needy- The recommended fee / was.: gross, one, .offset by-the, normal medical benefit. DirS Law , said that the meeting reflected the growj nity and

Government’s failure to help the public at the “primary” stage of medical care. If the general? medical service Benefit were increased, .the charge to the patient could.. be reduced. . “The Government must be made to see that the profession and the -people are dissatisfied with the service,” he said. “The general practitioner is the first point' o! contact in medical care. It i: all very-well to provide . glossy hospitals with show; equipment;; but if yoti don’ •provide , adequate privat - '/ care, you may as well no - ' have the hospital.” ■' Increasing costs to the patient were forcing more.and /’/.more people-to turn to pri-i vate insurance,-Dr Law said. . . Private insurance , was hot;:' necessarily a bad thing, but the Government should, con-, flip 3rnwllr»aßnns Of the

ciples of the Welfare State. The medical benefit itself had been set up to provide a free medical service, he said. Dr Law- said that the . “tone” of the meeting had been one of “continuing concern,” particularly for the , standard, of ■ care, given, and:nobody would suffer more ? because of the common fee. Doctors, had always recognised individual cases of hardship and would continue to do so.” • "Country doctors, working/, with patients who were also . their friends, would find it most difficult, to set tho new ; fee, ’ he said/ It should be' . recognised, /however, that their coists, including higher. ;. telephone and, travelling expenses, often, put them at a disadvantage relative to city practitioners;- ”'. No? fee discussed could, be : compulsory,/• however. TnA . - l ' • .. --., •

been .established more than six months ago; there, only 50 or 60 per cent of doctors charged accordingly; Doctors still had ideals, Dr Law said, and would not charge the suggested fee where: it could not be 'met easily. ‘ * The Rectors, ;“jn an elem tioji year” hope that public pressure might Engender a response from the Government. “We will maintain a watching brief,” said Dr Law. . The chairman of the New Zealand, Medical Association’s. council, Dr Jeremy. : Hopkins, said from Welling- ' ton that he doubted whether a standard‘fee would be “a great benefit”, to the patient. If there was a standard fee there would have to he. a >; standard service: ■ “What is a standard service anyway? There are so , many things -that a doctor can do. Something might not

be very complicated and not take very long or it could.be complicated and take quite a bit of time,” he said. ’

One country had tried to introduce a standard fee for each type of consultation and ended up with a list of more than 5000 different types of services that a doctor could provide, said Dr Hopkins. It . would be difficult to establish a standard fee . for all'iof New Zealand. Practice overheads in Auckland would be /much -higher I, than, for . a practice in Timarii, he said. But Dr Hopkins agreed that the general medical service benefit should be increased. It had not been increased since about 1974.

/ “The benefit certainly has not.’ kept pace J with. ’other costs. This is . making' life difficult.’ for’, some patients ■ who will not visit the doctor - because * they- cannot :- afford to,” he said.