Doctors - and Home Visits !

Health care used to be very predictable.  Most suburbs had several independent doctors practising as general practitioners and most families chose one to provide their health needs.  They became that doctors " patient " and regularly attended the surgery for checkups and the renewal of prescriptions. Surgery hours were usually over a five and a half day week.

It was usual for GP's to set aside time for home visits and sometimes these extended into the evening or during weekends.  Some patients were too ill to travel to the surgery and old people living alone were a medical concern.

The government encouraged this practice because it reduced demand on hospital emergency departments.  It was rewarded with an eighty dollar medical rebate on the usual Medicare payment GP's received for a consultation and usually doctors restricted home visits to those who were regular patients of their practice.

Recently, the number of doctors offering service as GP's has been declining.   In some suburbs and in many country towns the local GP has disappeared, or where the service exists the delay in gaining an appointment has blown out to a matter of weeks. As a result, attendance at hospital emergency departments have increased sharply, resulting in long waiting times for treatment.

Initially, the pool of GP's in many cities saw a way to ease that pressure by providing a home call emergency service.  Those that volunteered were rostered for call out at night and during weekends for those patients in urgent need of a doctor.   Each of these calls would be bulk billed to avoid payment problems and the calls would be financially assisted by that home visit rebate.

Most cities and large country towns now have such a service and it has evolved with an identity of its own.  In fact some doctors find it more appealing that establishing an independent suburban practice and it is now widely advertised.  It is fast becoming a replacement for making an appointment and seeing a doctor in his or her surgery. The immediacy of " urgent " need has been replaced by " convenience ".

The amount paid out in medical benefits has blown out by one hundred and seventy percent between 2010/11 and 2015/16,  from $ 90.8 million to $ 245.9 million.   Unfortunately, it is not only failing to meet an urgent medical need but it also tends to deliver poor value for money.

These services operate under a variety of names and still seems to be fast expanding into more regional areas.   It is now under review and it is likely that restrict provisions will apply. In the future, obtaining out of hours medical services may no longer be a matter of simply making a phone call.