Thursday, October 29, 2015

Doctors warn against US style healthcare

The president of the Australian Medical Association, Brian Owler, urged the government to tread carefully if it was considering a greater role for private health funds in primary care, including visits to general practitioners.

“That could involve setting up the boundaries for private health insurance and the rules for how they engage with particularly general practice and what they’re allowed to fund and that they don’t have the ability to do things like say you can only refer to this group of doctors or you can only order ‘x’ test or ‘y’ test,” Owler said.

“We’ve got to make sure by having them engaged in general practice they’re not introducing a US-style managed care system by stealth.”

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