PICTURE CREDIT

lene from the authority line.

She had a cheerful voice and

was, as they all are, professional

and courteous.

I had called her, as I do several

times a day, to request an authority

approval for a prescription for a

patient.

I gave her some numbers. She

gave me some numbers … and

presto— an authorised prescription

for an extra quantity of Prozac for

my patient with OCD.

I ring the authority line and an

are entrusted several times daily

While the doctor and patient are

rewarding and interesting job in

As part of my research for this

ingratiating recorded voice urges me

with life-and-death decisions con-

twiddling their thumbs waiting for

medicine. Meanwhile, the Medi-

article, I asked Charlene how she

to get the magic numbers in need

cerning their loyal patients— but you

the authority line to pick up, they

care bureaucrats are strangling GPs

liked her job. She said she had been

through the online mystic portal.

cannot trust them to correctly pre-

know who is boss. They must bow

to death.

working for Medicare for many

I gave up on that after numer-

scribe medicine.

down before the bureaucratic gods

The authority system is just one

years and loved the work.

ous tries because of its confusing

You blackmail them into ring-

of the health department.

glaring example— one of the many

Another lady on the prescription

complexity.

ing this ridiculous service to gain

I did a quick back-of-the-envelope

canaries in the GP coalmine.

line said it was“ never boring” and that

It is easier to pour a cup of tea

‘ approval’.

calculation based on my personal

The authority line’ s hold music is

she had been doing it for three years. I find all this quite amazing. I cannot imagine anything more boring than staring at a screen all day and night, mindlessly giving out numbers so the robotic doctor on the other end can do their job.

I tip my hat to the human resources department at Medicare. They seem to have an endless supply of these lovely, helpful people, while many businesses are struggling to find decent staff to work nine to five.

Just as I am about to leave the practice and go home for dinner, the phone rings. It is one of my regular patients who requires an authority

while listening to the music on hold as I wait the 10-15 minutes for the authority human to answer.

Finally, I get my magic numbers so

I can text the important document to my patient and go home for my dinner. A job that should have taken me one minute took 15 minutes.

You take the best and brightest from schools all over Australia. You

The authority people never seem to say no [*].

And if they never say no, what is the point of this wasteful farce?

The authority line’ s hold music is enough to drive any doctor insane.

I understand the theory: we cannot have doctors wasting precious public money on medication not needed by patients, especially if there is a cheaper option available. So let’ s spend billions to prevent

experiences:

• 35,500 GPs registered in Australia

• Six authority scripts / day

• Each takes 10 minutes = one hour / day = 300 hours / year

• 300 x 35,000 = 10.5 million hours

• Medicare values one GP hour at $ 250 for bulk-billed six-minute medicine

• The total: $ 2.6 billion A total waste. Add to that the cost of running the authority system and the extra cost to pharmacies.

And the department thinks this is a good idea?

And the government wonders why it is so difficult to recruit

enough to drive any doctor insane after having to listen to it hundreds of times.

At least they employ lovely obliging people to torment us.

[*] Editor’ s note: Last year an Australian National Audit Office report into the management of the PBS said there had been 278,900 rejections across the 12 million phone calls made by all prescribers( not just GPs) between August 2019 and August 2024.

This amounted to one rejection for every 43 calls made.

prescription urgently.

train them for 8-10 years at univer-

that happening.

young doctors to be GPs.

My heart sinks. I now know I will be late for dinner.

sity and in hospitals. They become dedicated, hardworking doctors who

My only conclusion is that it is a piece of social engineering.

We have a cultural problem. General practice is the most

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