OPINION: The age-old fight over cost shifting has a solution that isn’t rocket science: rework the funding agreement to pay for lower cost services and prevention.
My last day of COVID-19 isolation. Thanks to the new antiviral medication taken at home, I’ve not suffered more than moderate cold symptoms.
And good timing: the drug was available for prescribing by my GP in a telehealth consultation on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme from May 1. Before then it would have cost me over $1000 .and how for so many years it’s not been as good as it could and should be because of the age-old fight between the Commonwealth and the states over cost shifting.It’s a simple problem. And should have a straightforward solution.
The Commonwealth is likely to be up for extra tens of millions of dollars in PBS costs and, while the states are unlikely to enjoy significant real cost savings, it will unquestionably ease pressure on the state-funded hospital system. No cost-shift screaming that we can hear. The funding of drugs such as the new COVID-19 antivirals that keep at-risk patients out of hospitals is a good example of what should be happening with a holistic, health-centred approach to funding healthcare.But we still have many people attending hospital emergency and outpatient departments because they can’t access a bulk-billed GP clinic or can’t afford a non-bulk-billing clinic.
Clinicians have also argued that there has been inadequate growth in funding primary GP and other care by the Commonwealth, including inadequate funding for GPs treating chronic conditions and inadequate funding of preventive programs at the primary health care level.