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Campaigns

What has the AMA been doing for Family Doctors?

Family Doctors are the largest single specialty group of AMA members.

Family doctors are also the backbone of the primary health care system. The AMA supports family doctors in many ways because family doctors are the first point of contact for most Australians when they are seeking health care or advice. By supporting family doctors the AMA works to ensure that patients get a better deal from governments and the health system.

Some of the AMA’s recent campaigns in supporting family doctors include:

  • Raising the profile of mental health and the role that family doctors play in providing mental health care
  • Advocating for GP inclusion in Medicare Locals’ governance and board structures
  • Securing more funding for after-hours care and practice nurses
  • Increasing the number of medicines covered by the streamlined PBS authority prescription process
  • Supporting International Medical Graduates (IMGs) in their transition to working in Australia
  • Stopping a diabetes care funding model that could have paved the way for fundholding, and in its place establishing a pilot program for diabetes care.
  • MBS funding for GP referred MRI
  • Securing collaborative care arrangements that require midwives and nurse practitioners to establish collaborative arrangements with a medical practitioner in order for their services to attract an MBS or PBS benefit
  • Protecting family doctors from unnecessary Medicare Audits and ensuring patient privacy by forcing changes to the Health Insurance Amendment (Compliance) Act 2011. The changes ensure that patient clinical information is not put in the hands of government administrative officers.
  • A significant expansion in training places for GPs and specialists, and increased support to GP trainers
  • Ensuring family doctors continue to be the backbone of Australia’s National Immunisation Program
  • Working to reduce red tape wherever possible, including working to have many government forms streamlined.

View the campaigns here

AMA Gaps Poster

The AMA has long campaigned for better indexation of Medicare schedule fees.

Since 1999, we have included a fee gaps chart in the AMA Fees List to show the ever-widening gap between the indexation of Medicare schedule fees and the indices for CPI, average weekly earnings and AMA fees.

Read more here

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