Maintaining Care Access Critical for Doctors While Balancing the Books

By John Freer

Operators of your local medical centres do not like increasing charges for their patients.

Subsequently, across the Coromandel Peninsula and Hauraki districts those people responsible for our front-line healthcare know only too well the impact of increasing fees and communicating the message.

Dr Jo Scott-Jones

The Clinical Director of Pinnacle Health, Dr Jo Scott-Jones, himself a general practitioner, completely understands what practice managers are going through to keep their doors open while keeping patients in good health.

He mentions increased prices which brings potential unaffordability for some people. He further notes the fact that patients then incur debts which the practice must carry.

“For a patient having a debt in place it will be just awful,” he told CFM.

Dr Scott-Jones also knows that practices cannot survive on debt as staff have to be paid and expenses covered.

At the centre of the problem – like most issues – is funding. One practice we have spoken to, and this has been communicated to patients, in the past 12 months government funding for primary care has only increased four percent while the centre’s costs have jumped nine percent.

So, a $5 increase has been imposed with high user card holders facing a $1 per visit increase.

Dr Scott-Jones is quick to point out another conundrum this being under the pricing rules, the practice could have pushed the charges up by $15 without triggering a fees review.

“Practices don’t want to pass the increased fees on to patients, they would prefer the government to pay. The current government’s philosophy is user pays.”

Besides on-going lobbying, Dr Scott-Jones outlined work that Pinnacle Health, the region’s primary health organisation, is undertaking. He put this under three headings being funding, workforce and workload.

Better use of funding, peer group support, improved funding systems and aspects such as bulk purchasing are being promoted by his organisation as they look to stretch dollars as far as possible.

With the workforce, he said the establishment of a recruiting agency was under consideration while pilot programmes were in place aligning trainee doctors and nurses with general practice.

As to workloads, the doctor pointed to the complexity of a GP’s role as a result the use of AI technology was being trialled which enabled a significant increase in face-to-face time with patients and reduced time on the paperwork.

There are 88 practices across the Pinnacle Health network, Dr Scott-Jones confirming: “Yes there are practices in significant financial strife”.