Doctors to stop the clock

SIX-MINUTE medicine would end and patients would get to spend at least 20 minutes with their GP under a new funding model rewarding longer consultations.

GPs would get a 19 per cent pay rise under the plan and be paid as much as specialists for seeing a patient.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners says the six-minute medicine practised by high-turnover, bulk-billing clinics encourages too many prescriptions for antibiotics. And chronically ill patients don’t get the care that keeps them out of hospital.

“We believe when GPs are spending more time with their patients, that leads to less prescribing, less pathology, less referrals, enhanced continuity of care, and that would, or course, mean less hospital presentations as well,” RACGP president Dr Bastian Seidel said.

The college has asked the government’s Medicare review to give doctors a 19 per cent rise for a longer consultation, which it says would make it economically viable for doctors.

The Medicare rebate would rise from $67 to almost $80 for a consultation of between 20 and 40 minutes, putting the Medicare rebate for GPs on a par with rebate for a consultation with a specialist.

“What we want to achieve is a shift of the norm where the stock standard 10-minute consultation is being shifted towards a 20-minute consultation,” he said.

Sweden, where the average medical consultation time is 24 minutes a patient, had the lowest prescription rates for antibiotics, Dr Seidel said.

About 10 per cent of doctors’ consultations take six minutes in Australia; the average consultation is 15 minutes.