Paying doctors a fee for each service they provide isn't delivering optimal value for the health dollar. Instead, we should pay doctors a lump sum to care for a patient's medical problem over time.
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Articles on Primary care
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The Ontario government and the Ontario Medical Association are currently engaged in arbitration to determine how family doctors will be paid.
Individuals who carry the breast cancer genes _BRCA1_ or _BRCA2_ are often unaware of the fact. That suggests that physicians need a new way to apply DNA-based screens to identify those at risk.
The NHS funding formula is based on an unfair premise which is funnelling money away from the regions that need it most.
The signs of a gambling problem can be hidden from view.
For many of the nation's poor, food and shelter are more important than health care. Questions of insurance coverage loom broadly, but another question lingers: how to treat the poor we do not see.
Providing health care to the bush not only benefits people's health but the local economy.
Business Briefing: treat the cause not the symptoms of problems with private health insurance
The Conversation10.5 MB (download)
If customers are questioning the value of private health insurance its because of the way the system is distorted by government incentives.
People ending up in hospital for diabetes, tooth decay, or other conditions that should be treatable or manageable out of hospital is a warning sign of system failure.
The government must do more to deliver a 21st-century health system – not just to improve its standing with voters but to meet the health needs of all Australians.
Many guidelines offered to GPs are based on evidence unrelated to general practice. Studies show doctors tend to ignore these guidelines which can pose a risk to patients' health.
What's in store for key policy areas, from health to education to infrastructure to asylum seekers, under a returned Coalition government?
Scare campaigns only work if there is some anxiety to build on. Labor’s Medicare campaign plugged into a long history of Coalition ambivalence – or open hostility – towards Medicare.
Pathology Australia promptly abandoned its Don't Kill Bulk Bill campaign against cuts to bulk-billing incentives after doing a deal with the federal government.
Labor will lift the rebate freeze from 2017, while under the Coalition, GPs will be paid the same amount for delivering health services in 2020 as they were in 2014. So what does this mean for patients?
Better primary care could have prevented more than a quarter-of-a-million hospital admissions for health problems such as diabetes each year.
Over-65s use twice as many health resources as the average Australian. But it's worth the expense.
Any health reform proposals should start by addressing public hospitals and chronic care. But successful change in these areas requires getting the state-Commonwealth funding and incentives right.
Cutting Medicare rebates for GPs affects us all, whereas in-hospital private patient rebates, which only benefit the better-off, are ripe for the razor gang.
With GPs facing greater economic pressure and the health minister considering legislative change to make it easier for GP to charge them, GP co-payments, like Lazarus, may rise again from the dead.
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Top contributors
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Stephen Duckett is a Friend of The Conversation.Director, Health Program, Grattan Institute
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Adjunct Associate Professor, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney
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Associate Professor in Health Policy, Menzies Centre for Health Policy & Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
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Associate Professor, School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University
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Research Fellow, Family Medicine Research Centre, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
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Senior Research Analyst, Family Medicine Research Centre, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
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Associate professor, Director of the Family Medicine Research Centre, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
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Associate Professor of General Practice, University of Sydney
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Professor of Health Economics and Director, Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation, University of Technology Sydney
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Health economist, University of Technology Sydney
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Health Fellow, Grattan Institute
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Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW
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Research Fellow, Family Medicine Research Centre, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
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Senior Research Fellow (Honorary)., University of Sydney
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Emeritus Professor, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney
