Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Angus Chambers: GP Owners Association Chair on GPs having to raise their prices to keep up with running costs and patient demand

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Angus Chambers: GP Owners Association Chair on GPs having to raise their prices to keep up with running costs and patient demand · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about your healthcare. Nine out of ten family
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: doctor clinics clinics are planning to increase their fees if
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: they haven't already. That's according to a survey from the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: General Practice Owners Association. They're calling it a crisis. The
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Health Minister, doctor Shane Retti, says he's trying to sort
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: it out, including looking at the funding model. Angus Chambers
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: is with the GP Owners Association. He is with us
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: this morning. Good morning, good morning, thanks for being with me. Now,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: one of the things I found interesting the customer numbers
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: or patient numbers are up twenty percent over ten years
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: for GPS. Shouldn't that be good for business?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not actually correct. The number of times people
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: attend each each person attends is up twenty percent. So
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: what that means the same money you get paid for
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: that person goes quite quite a bit less because they're
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: coming more often, they've got more complicated healthcare needs. So no,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: it actually is it's more taxing on the business.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: So is that part of the problem that the funding
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: you get from the part you get from the government
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: only covers the patient, not how many times they come.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: That's correct, So it's certainly as putting a much bigger
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: strain on the services. Why are they coming so much, Well,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: healthcare is changing over the years. The big part of
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: it is actually the aging population. So aging people have
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: more health problems and they come more often. There's more
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: tests that we can do, there's more treatments that we
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: can do. Mental health issues are significantly on the rise,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: which means people will thankfully come a bit more for that,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: but that's also quite a burden on the system.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: How much can you charge, because there's a copayment that
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: we pay when we go to see a GP, how
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: much can you charge? Can you increase that exponentially?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: No? Hey, look, some people we've signed contracts to have
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: fixed fees, whether it's zero or for community services cards
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: nineteen dollars fifty. For the rest of the people, yes,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: you can increase your fee, but there's a kind of
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: a threshold that's set and if you increase it by
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: more than that, the system that the Health New Zealand
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: can refer you to something called a fees review Committee,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: which is an expensive, bureaucratic, involved process and they check
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: whether you should be allowed to increase your fees or not.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: How much of this problem is it comes down to
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: exactly what you've described. You're not paid for every time
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: at a patient visits versus there is a shortage of
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: labor and a shortage of staff that you just can't
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: get your hands on. Or does one problem cause the other?
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're interrelated. You know. The system of getting paid
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: a certain Auntport patient is actually, in essence not a
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: bad one. But the increase in a costs to provide
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: that service have not been kept pace with, either through
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: government funding or having our fees restricted as we talked about,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: and so that means that you can't generate the income
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: required to pay people more attractive such as our nurses
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: or gps, both of whom both groups of whom are
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: being either attracted by the hospital systems or overseas.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: What's the solution then.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Well, there's a number of things that have to be done,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: but the immediate thing is we need to retain some
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: of our general practice and nursing staff and that comes
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: down to increasing funding to be fair, I mean, in
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: the end, the patients are the ones who are suffering
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: for this. They're paying a lot more to come and
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: see us, they have to wait for prolonged periods, or
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: they're not even able to enroll. Our services are closing
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: around the country, especially after our services from Northland to Southland.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: We've had services closed in the last twelve to eighteen
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: months and it's going to get worse. Communities are going
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: to lose their access to their general practice team.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Just to be really clear, angers, do you want the
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: funding to increase in line with how many extra visits
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: people are making or by what measure.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: That would be a factor in it. But the government's
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: actually missions a number of independent reports that have looked
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: at this quite def deeply, in the most recent one
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two, and they had recognized that the
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: system doesn't pay for complexity and deprivation and they have
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: worked out a formula to suggest what's fair to just
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: sustain the practice, not to increase and get the enhancements
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: we need to provide better care. And that was around
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: about fourteen percent increased funding.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Okay and Gus, thank you very much for your time.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate it. I really appreciate it. This morning, Angus Chambers,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: the gen pro Chare, that's the GP Owners Association, just
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: repeating that nine out of ten family doctor clinics say
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: they plan to increase their fees if they haven't already.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: So more great news, Happy Tuesday.
• 4:47
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