Australian specialists’ income has fallen dramatically as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and while there are now signs of recovery, earnings may never return to pre-COVID-19 levels, medical billing experts suggest.
Ms Margaret Faux, founder and CEO of Synapse medical administration company, says about 90% of her clients are specialists and their income took a big hit as the COVID-19 pandemic reached Australia.
While March billings were as usual, there was a 20-25% drop in specialists’ overall income, including Medicare billings and gap fees in April and May, she says.
The halt to elective surgery in many jurisdictions, combined with patients’ reluctance to undergo procedures or seek consults due to fears about COVID-19, had a huge impact on most specialists’ patient loads, with surgeons and anaesthetists hit hardest.
“I’ve never heard this in my life before, but we had some anaesthetists say: ‘I have no work’,” she tells the limbic.
A report released last month found that four in five Australian specialists experienced a fall in monthly income in May compared to before the pandemic and that half were relying on the Federal Government JobKeeper scheme to support practice staff.
Ms Faux says some specialists were able to switch to telehealth consults, but procedural specialists including some gastroenterologists and procedural cardiologists were unable to do so and were significantly affected.
Exceptions included oncologists and haematologists who didn’t appear to experience a big drop in patient volume, she said. Rehabilitation medicine specialists and geriatricians who already had well-established telehealth systems were also not as badly affected.
“We saw some signs of recovery in June, but we’re not seeing pre-COVID levels yet,” Ms Faux said, noting that specialists in lockdown areas of Victoria were again seeing a drop in patient volume.
Regional variations
Medical Billing Experts Managing Director Loryn Einstein said intensivists, surgeons, anaesthetists and proceduralist specialists had experienced the biggest falls in income due to reduced theatre time due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“Everyone has been hit, but it has really varied hospital, by hospital and state by state,” she said, noting that Western Australia had been the least affected.
”We have had a number of specialists close their offices and send staff to work remotely, and a few have had staff reductions.”
Billing appeared to have returned almost to normal in July and August for most specialists outside Victoria, Mrs Einstein said, but the long-term outlook remained uncertain.