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Speaker 1: Let's talk about your healthcare. Nine out of ten family

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Speaker 1: doctor clinics clinics are planning to increase their fees if

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Speaker 1: they haven't already. That's according to a survey from the

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Speaker 1: General Practice Owners Association. They're calling it a crisis. The

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Speaker 1: Health Minister, doctor Shane Retti, says he's trying to sort

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Speaker 1: it out, including looking at the funding model. Angus Chambers

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Speaker 1: is with the GP Owners Association. He is with us

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Speaker 1: this morning. Good morning, good morning, thanks for being with me. Now,

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Speaker 1: one of the things I found interesting the customer numbers

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Speaker 1: or patient numbers are up twenty percent over ten years

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Speaker 1: for GPS. Shouldn't that be good for business?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not actually correct. The number of times people

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Speaker 2: attend each each person attends is up twenty percent. So

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Speaker 2: what that means the same money you get paid for

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Speaker 2: that person goes quite quite a bit less because they're

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Speaker 2: coming more often, they've got more complicated healthcare needs. So no,

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Speaker 2: it actually is it's more taxing on the business.

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Speaker 1: So is that part of the problem that the funding

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Speaker 1: you get from the part you get from the government

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Speaker 1: only covers the patient, not how many times they come.

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Speaker 2: That's correct, So it's certainly as putting a much bigger

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Speaker 2: strain on the services. Why are they coming so much, Well,

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Speaker 2: healthcare is changing over the years. The big part of

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Speaker 2: it is actually the aging population. So aging people have

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Speaker 2: more health problems and they come more often. There's more

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Speaker 2: tests that we can do, there's more treatments that we

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Speaker 2: can do. Mental health issues are significantly on the rise,

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Speaker 2: which means people will thankfully come a bit more for that,

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Speaker 2: but that's also quite a burden on the system.

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Speaker 1: How much can you charge, because there's a copayment that

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Speaker 1: we pay when we go to see a GP, how

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Speaker 1: much can you charge? Can you increase that exponentially?

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Speaker 2: No? Hey, look, some people we've signed contracts to have

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Speaker 2: fixed fees, whether it's zero or for community services cards

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Speaker 2: nineteen dollars fifty. For the rest of the people, yes,

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Speaker 2: you can increase your fee, but there's a kind of

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Speaker 2: a threshold that's set and if you increase it by

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Speaker 2: more than that, the system that the Health New Zealand

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Speaker 2: can refer you to something called a fees review Committee,

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Speaker 2: which is an expensive, bureaucratic, involved process and they check

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Speaker 2: whether you should be allowed to increase your fees or not.

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Speaker 1: How much of this problem is it comes down to

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Speaker 1: exactly what you've described. You're not paid for every time

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Speaker 1: at a patient visits versus there is a shortage of

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Speaker 1: labor and a shortage of staff that you just can't

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Speaker 1: get your hands on. Or does one problem cause the other?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're interrelated. You know. The system of getting paid

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Speaker 2: a certain Auntport patient is actually, in essence not a

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Speaker 2: bad one. But the increase in a costs to provide

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Speaker 2: that service have not been kept pace with, either through

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Speaker 2: government funding or having our fees restricted as we talked about,

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Speaker 2: and so that means that you can't generate the income

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Speaker 2: required to pay people more attractive such as our nurses

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Speaker 2: or gps, both of whom both groups of whom are

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Speaker 2: being either attracted by the hospital systems or overseas.

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Speaker 1: What's the solution then.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's a number of things that have to be done,

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Speaker 2: but the immediate thing is we need to retain some

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Speaker 2: of our general practice and nursing staff and that comes

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Speaker 2: down to increasing funding to be fair, I mean, in

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Speaker 2: the end, the patients are the ones who are suffering

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Speaker 2: for this. They're paying a lot more to come and

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Speaker 2: see us, they have to wait for prolonged periods, or

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Speaker 2: they're not even able to enroll. Our services are closing

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Speaker 2: around the country, especially after our services from Northland to Southland.

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Speaker 2: We've had services closed in the last twelve to eighteen

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Speaker 2: months and it's going to get worse. Communities are going

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Speaker 2: to lose their access to their general practice team.

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Speaker 1: Just to be really clear, angers, do you want the

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Speaker 1: funding to increase in line with how many extra visits

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Speaker 1: people are making or by what measure.

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Speaker 2: That would be a factor in it. But the government's

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Speaker 2: actually missions a number of independent reports that have looked

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Speaker 2: at this quite def deeply, in the most recent one

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two, and they had recognized that the

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Speaker 2: system doesn't pay for complexity and deprivation and they have

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Speaker 2: worked out a formula to suggest what's fair to just

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Speaker 2: sustain the practice, not to increase and get the enhancements

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Speaker 2: we need to provide better care. And that was around

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Speaker 2: about fourteen percent increased funding.

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Speaker 1: Okay and Gus, thank you very much for your time.

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Speaker 1: Really appreciate it. I really appreciate it. This morning, Angus Chambers,

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Speaker 1: the gen pro Chare, that's the GP Owners Association, just

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Speaker 1: repeating that nine out of ten family doctor clinics say

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Speaker 1: they plan to increase their fees if they haven't already.

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Speaker 1: So more great news, Happy Tuesday.

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