14/12/2022
Our goal at First Avenue Family Practice has always been to provide the highest quality healthcare. We aim to provide this in a way that was affordable and accessible to the community.
As with other small businesses, we have faced rising costs of running our practice. Your fees cover not only the doctors, nurses and receptionists you see, but also significant insurance costs, software, IT support, and all of our medical equipment to name a few. We have also found that increasingly, patients are requiring more time and care with their complex problems.
Medicare rebates do not, and were never intended to cover the full cost of medical services. Medicare rebates are provided by the Government to help you cover the cost of your medical care. Since Medicare began 40 years ago, the Government indexation of Medicare Schedule Fees has not kept pace with real increases in practice costs. In addition, Medicare continues to reward rapid turnover of patients, which is against the ethos of First Avenue Family Practice.
To sustain the high level of care, we are now required to privately bill all patients from 1st of February 2022. Please contact us to see a copy of our fee schedule.
We understand this will be a significant cost for some of our patients, however, our business cannot continue to provide the high-quality care we are known for with our current fee structure. This has been a difficult decision made by the practice for our future survival.
We encourage you to raise this issue with your local Federal Government representative in the hopes that Medicare rebates more accurately reflect the cost of healthcare.
Member for Reid: Ms Sally Sitou
Email: sally.sitou.mp@aph.gov.au
Kind regards,
First Avenue Family Practice
