AMA President Dr Danielle McMullen provides members with the latest from the national AMA.
Happy Friday everyone, and Happy Lunar New Year!
I hope those of you who celebrate Lunar New Year had some time with family and friends. The year of the Fire Horse is set to bring high-paced action and change - let's all work together to make sure that intensity is balanced with calm, considered progress.
The pace of this year is already palpable, and it was another busy week at the AMA. Our Public Health Committee met on Monday for the first time this year. Public health is where our clinical skills combine with advocacy to help entire populations at once and it is so powerful. We were grateful to be joined by senior representatives from the new Australian Centre for Disease Control and had a great conversation about the challenges of cutting through with accurate health information in a society constantly distracted by misinformation and disinformation and where trust in institutions is under pressure.
We also talked about the importance of information getting to both the public and to practitioners. Clarity of information even when it's rapidly changing is difficult but important. I know none of us want to repeat the pandemic where guidelines were changing on a seemingly daily basis, but we need to be equipped with the skills to manage that in case it happens again.
You may have seen this week the government announced its approval of a rise in average premiums for private health of 4.41 per cent - the highest since 2017. Although costs are increasing in providing care, this will hit families hard who are struggling with cost of living pressures.
We need to ensure that every cent of the increase is put back into patient care. Private health insurers' management expenses have risen too fast and there has not been a commensurate increase in patient benefits. We need to ensure that insurers are delivering value for money.
As a doctor it worries me that people are pushed to downgrade their level of cover and don't realise that they are not covered for procedures they later need. We have a shown in our Private Health Insurance Report Cards that premiums have outstripped inflation. Insurers have increased benefits paid for in-hospital medical treatment over the past six years by 18 per cent while their sector profits have grown by nearly 50 per cent. We are calling on the federal government to mandate insurers to return at least 90 per cent of private health insurance premiums back to consumers in the form of benefits.
This week reminds us of the pressing need for a Private Health System Authority to better regulate the sector and drive long-term reform.
Speaking of regulation, I met this week with the Australian Health Regulators Network. I was given the opportunity to share the provider experience of regulation, and we had a frank exchange of ideas on the importance of looking after the wellbeing of providers under investigation and also supporting regulators to deliver educational activities as well as their stronger regulatory roles, and of regulating with compassion.
On the subject of compassion, I was struck this week by an article in AusDoc about the importance of therapeutic touch, and whether the fear of regulatory action is getting in the way of it. AI may well be able to synthesise large amounts of data. And it may even come up with a pretty good diagnosis and management plan if we let it. But what it can't do is hold a patient's hand, using the power of physical connection to support patients in their time of need. Of course, we need emotional intelligence to use this skill appropriately - but we can't afford to lose it entirely.
Julian and I also caught up with the Insurance Council of Australia's medical indemnity CEO group to continue discussions on the affordability of indemnity insurance, particularly in the context of growing focus on specialist fees. I know for many of you, insurance is a significant contributor to your overheads.
But I must say my highlight this week was being invited to give the occasional address at a Deakin university graduation ceremony. There is something so energising about a room full of new graduates ready to face the world. This ceremony was for non-medical health graduates in social work, occupational therapy, play therapy, health promotion. It was such a fantastic opportunity to talk about the importance of teamwork and human connection in health. If any of you need a bit of an uplift, I'd encourage you to attend a graduation or at least hang out with some recent graduates and lap up their energy.
Until next week, take care
