(This daily post is about Australia and Australians)
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This week the daily doctor continues to examine how you can best prepare for the future of health care in Australia by extrapolating current trends in government policy and corporate activity.
In the future of Australian health care will we even have GPs?
The answer is most likely “not many” and “in limited roles”.
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What health providers do you want to see?
If we were to end up with such a health system, you will not have a regular doctor but different doctors and AI that only see a set of medical records about you via bulkbilling clinics, urgent care clinics and/or telehealth.
You will have an array of providers for each problem you have:
medical specialists eg, aged care specialist (eg, geriatrician), cardiologist, general surgeon, endocrinologist (eg, diabetes specialist), gynaecology and obstetric specialist, oncologist, psychiatrist, haematologist, eye specialist etc
allied health practitioners eg, physiotherapist, psychologist, dietitian, nutritionist, podiatrist, speech pathologist etc
medical specialist clinics (& public hospital public health clinics) eg, diabetes, skin cancer, gynaecology (eg, menopause, endometriosis), oncology, fracture, hand-surgical, sexual health, MS and MND clinics etc
nurse-led and physician assistant (or associate)-led services or practices eg, diabetes clinic, falls clinic, rehabilitation services, palliative care services, stroke rehabilitation, antenatal clinic etc
medical specialist teams and services eg, aged care assessment team, cardiac rehabilitation and other rehabilitation services, cancer surveillance services (eg, breast cancer) etc
health practitioners not currently directly connected through your GP eg, dentist, orthodontist, pharmacist, social worker, occupational therapist, midwife, optometrist, audiologist etc
complementary and other non-mainstream medicine practitioners eg, Chinese medicine and acupuncture providers, chiropractors, naturopaths and herbalists etc
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Building a directory of “your people”
So, if you will no longer have your own doctor to manage your health care in the future, you should start building the database or directory of your health providers now.
How do you do that? Here’s my suggestion:
First of all, you need a good amount of space — this is not going to be an A4-page listing some names and contact numbers. Consider making an excel spreadsheet or having a dedicated notebook;
Make a list of your current health providers — your regular GP can help you get started;
Note down their contact number, address, name of practice and if possible, their Medicare provider number — this is the number Medicare gives them for you to claim Medicare rebates for their service;
Document what they do eg, specialty, service provided;
Check them against the government database of registered providers on the AHPRA website and do this annually;1 and
keep separate files of the documents they generate when they interact with you eg, correspondences, investigation results and reports, and referral letters to them (and when you need to update them annually).
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https://www.ahpra.gov.au/registration/registers-of-practitioners.aspx