South Australian public hospitals stand accused of deliberately cost-shifting specialist outpatient care onto Medicare, disadvantaging patients and annoying GPs.
The Rural Doctors’ Association of South Australia (RDASA) claims it has become common practice for public hospital administrators to contact GPs requesting they rewrite general referrals to outpatient services specifying the name of the specialist to be seen, in order to pass on the bill to Medicare.
“It’s a widespread practice that has been in place for some time; it involves pretty much every hospital and clinic in South Australia,” RDASA vice president Dr Scott Lewis told the limbic.
GPs say the practice is also occurring in Queensland and Tasmania.
The cost-shifting exercise is likely to have little impact on specialists, who as visiting medical officers are paid the same amount regardless.
But it means patients who don’t have private referrals wait much longer to get an appointment that those who do, Dr Lewis claimed.