Minister, doctors seem confident of agreement

Press, 6 July 1985, Page 1

Minister, doctors seem confident of agreement

PA Wellington The Minister of Health, Dr Bassett, and the chairman of the Medical Association, Dr John Broadfoot, are confident they can agree on subsidies for child patients. After talks at Parliament, Dr Broadfoot said last evening that he was “quite confident” the association could reach agreement with the Government. “Today there has been good faith exhibited by both sides in the interests of children,” he said. Dr Bassett agreed and said he hoped doctors would put forward “a range of things that we can take up, negotiate, and hopefully put into force quickly.” The High Court last week found that the Government’s child medical benefit scheme, involving about one-quarter of the nation’s 1990 general practitioners, was invalid. Dr Bassett set up an interim scheme to cover the

487 doctors and 200,000 children who had been using the arrangement, and said before yesterday’s talks that he wanted doctors to agree to the concept of a guideline fee. In this way charges could be held for a fixed period once an increased subsidy was introduced. At present a* doctor is obliged to pass to patients any subsidy increases on the day they come into effect, but is not prevented from raising charges the next day.. Dr Broadfoot said the Medical Association proposed steering committees to police a universal general medical service benefit for children, and said Dr Bassett was “receptive” to the idea but wanted to know more about how it would work. “The essential thing that he needs to know — which I can’t tell him today — is exactly how long would he

see the patient subsidy being intact,” Dr Broadfoot said. “I have to go back to the membership and find out what doctors think about the issue.” Dr Broadfoot said the question might need a special council meeting. Dr Bassett said he gave the doctors the general principles which the Cabinet and the Government wanted, and indicated that the Government was “pretty flexible” about how they were achieved. He offered to pay a new pediatric benefit of $10.25 from August 1, but it would be necessary to get agreement on protection of the benefit. This could include a fee guideline or something similar. “We find the concept of a guideline fee desirable, but it need not necessarily be of that precise kind that was in the previous scheme,” Dr Bassett said. “We want to see a total

charge that would be held for a period.” The' Government proposed having the value of the child subsidy held for a year because it was convenient for making adjustments at Budget time. Dr Bassett said he accepted the need for a system of orderly and regular adjustment of whatever was decided upon. Improvements to disciplinary procedures would also be desirable. “It is over to the Medical Association to talk some more about that,”-he said. The Government wanted some discussion between doctors and agreement between them. Dr Broadfoot said the association was already working on its own guideline fees for doctors. A Christchurch member of the Medical Association’s executive, Dr David Kerr, said that as well as proposing a universal G.M.S. benefit for children, the association wanted to ensure that patients reaped the advantages of increases in such benefits. When the Government increased the benefit, doctors’ fees should be reduced proportionately for some time, so that the patient could see some benefit in the increase, he said. The association would investigate ways of preventing benefit increases from being lost to the patient as well as other benefit issues, and report back to Dr Bassett, said Dr Kerr.