OPTOMETRY AMONG TOP BULK BILLING HEALTH PROFESSIONS

The latest Medicare utilisation figures show the rate of bulk billed optometry services in Australia has remained high and stable compared to other health disciplines such as GPs, however Medicare items are insufficient to cover the true costs of providing quality eyecare, advocates say.

The Federal Government released its quarterly Medicare statistics (September quarter 2022-23) which show 94.3% of optometry services were bulk billed in the quarter, which is consistent with statistics back to 2014-15 when there was a noticeable drop from the 97% rate.

Optometry Australia (OA) interim CEO Ms Skye Cappuccio said optometry has long been one of the highest bulk-billing professions.

“There are a number of reasons for this, including perceptions –perhaps not fully founded – about the willingness of patients to pay out-of-pocket costs for optometric care. Removal of the ‘cap’ on fees optometrists could charge for Medicare-subsidised services (which OA was successful in securing in 2015) did result in a small drop in bulk billing,” she said.

“Whilst bulk-billing for Medicare-subsidised services remains high, anecdotal evidence suggests that more practices are billing privately for services not covered by Medicare.”

When an optometry patient was charged an out-of-pocket cost, the average amount paid was $34. For specialists, which include ophthalmologists, the data unsurprisingly showed the minority of patients were bulk billed at a rate of 30.6%. In the 5.9 million services that involved billing a patient, the average out-of-pocket cost was $101 per service.

GPs have been particularly concerned about their diminishing ability to provide bulk billed care. GP non-referred attendances were bulk billed 83.4% of the time in the latest figures. This is significantly lower than the corresponding 2021-22 quarter at 89.6% and the peak in the 2019-20 June quarter at 92.5%.

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