The two main bodies representing doctors in the ACT have warned that patients will end up paying for a new tax which the ACT government says GP practices must pay.
The Royal Australian College of GPs and the Australian Medical Association said that "GPs will have little option but to pass the additional tax on to patients".
Dr Kerrie Aust, the incoming president of the AMA in the ACT, and trainee GP Dr Betty Ge explain.
The Royal Australian College of GPs and the Australian Medical Association said that "GPs will have little option but to pass the additional tax on to patients".
Dr Kerrie Aust, the incoming president of the AMA in the ACT, and trainee GP Dr Betty Ge explain.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 I think the bottom line is that practices don't have the capacity to absorb this additional
00:05 payroll tax, so the cost of this measure is going to have to be passed on to patients.
00:11 And it's going to make access to general practice even harder, so there'll be more wait times,
00:16 it'll be harder to see the GP, hours may be reduced, we may not be able to continue to
00:21 have our nursing staff, which will mean less access when people need it most.
00:26 We already have difficulty attracting enough trainees into the training program, as in
00:31 nurturing future GPs.
00:33 So that's already a quite desperate situation in Canberra.
00:37 And this will further create financial instability in general practice, which will discourage
00:43 a lot of junior doctors coming into general practice and choosing general practice as
00:48 a future career.
00:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]