Australian Doctor Australian Doctor 7th July 2017 | Page 8

News
Is this the calm before the
storm for medical indemnity?
Analysis
Antony Scholefield
MDOs fear the government is
planning to gut support schemes
and that might lead to another
UMP-style tornado.
OLDER doctors will prob-
ably know something is up
when the indemnity indus-
try starts getting flashbacks
to 2002.
Fifteen years ago, medical
defence organisation United
Medical Protection (UMP)
almost went belly-up along
with thousands of doctors’
insurance cover.
Its unfunded group liabili-
ties reached $455 million.
Premiums increased. UMP
went into voluntary admin-
istration.
As then AMA president
Dr Kerryn Phelps said: “If
UMP falls over today, 90%
of NSW doctors couldn’t
go to work tomorrow. It’s
nothing short of a major
crisis.”
Thousands of doctors
were thinking about dump-
ing their careers until the
Federal Government, usu-
ally the villain in stories
about medicine and money,
stepped in. It propped up
UMP and established a
series of taxpayer-funded
‘schemes’ to support medi-
cal defence organisations.
In the years since those
turbulent days, calm has
been restored. But MDOs
would argue the calm is tak-
ing policy-makers in a dan-
gerous direction that will
lead back to the days when
the support schemes didn’t
exist.
In 2014, the National
Commission of Audit first
recommended scrapping the
High Cost Claims Scheme
and the government’s pledge
to cover half the cost of set-
tlements above a threshold
of $300,000.
And then last year, the
Australian National Audit
Office recommended that
the Department of Health
conduct a ‘first principles’
review. Fans of the TV
show Yes Minister will
know that when reviews are
announced, the outcomes
are usually already known,
and that means the schemes
being ditched.
However, there seems to
be some delays in getting
things going. The terms of
reference were scheduled
to arrive in January. That
hasn’t happened.
One rumour says despite
the pressure from Treasury
for cost-savings, officials
in the health department
are happy with the delays
because they better under-
stand the political fallout a
review would trigger.
It is worth stressing
that the High Cost Claims
Scheme, which absorbs
roughly $60 million year, is
already being scaled back.
The settlement threshold
will rise to $500,000 next
In Brief
Staff writers
For love not money
GPs only turn to aged
care work as a last resort
because the remuneration
is so poor, a parliamentary
committee says. The
Senate Committee for
Community Affairs has
heard that up to half of
the work GPs perform
in residential aged care
facilities is unpaid,
including travel and
liaising with carers. The
burden of unpaid work,
plus diminishing Medicare
rebates, means the aged
care sector struggles to
attract GPs, the committee
reports.
New goal for HIV
‘Fans of the TV
show Yes Minister
will know that
when reviews
are announced,
the outcomes are
usually already
known, and
that means the
schemes being
ditched.’
year, reducing the cash
going to MDOs by about
$17 million a year.
MDOs — rightly or
wrongly — are suggesting
they will have to pass the
cost onto doctors in the
form of a premium hike of
around 5%.
But this threat is not the
sole reason for the 2002
flashbacks. MDOs point
out that the number of med-
ical negligence claims have
not increased for years. But
their logic runs that what
goes down must eventually
come up.
They fear that the govern-
ment will gut the schemes
while the industry is calm,
and then a storm will hit
— the type of storm the
schemes are meant to brace
against.
Another argument is that
while negligence claims
may not be shifting, MDOs
are facing cost pressures
because doctors are using
their services as a result of
more notifications being
made to the various medical
watchdogs.
Obviously, they have a
financial motive to warn
of scary times ahead. No
industry likes losing its tax-
payer subsidies.
But it’s not just MDOs
who will be worried. With
the memories of 2002 not
quite forgotten, older doc-
tors will know how quickly
things can go wrong and the
damage that can be caused.
THE Victorian Government
has vowed to “virtually
eliminate” new HIV
infections within three
years. It announced a
strategy last month that
includes new targets for
testing, treatment and
prevention. “Our bold
plan will see Victoria beat
targets set by the UN for
the virtual elimination of
new HIV infections across
the world,” said Minister for
Health Jill Hennessy. The
minister also announced
$1.2 million of funding for
research into a potential
cure for HIV.
Privacy matters
DRAFT resources to help
GPs and practice managers
understand new legal
obligations for reporting
data breaches have been
released. From February
2018, practices will need
to report to the Information
Commissioner if somebody
without authorisation
sees a patient’s medical
information and this access
is likely to cause serious
harm to the patient.
See the draft resources at:
bit.ly/2tmB38x
Concern over increase use of opio