Posted by Michael Wonder on 12 Jul 2017
The rise and fall in out-of-pocket costs in Australia: an analysis of the strengthening Medicare reforms
12 July 2017 - After a period of steady decline, out-of-pocket (OOP) costs for general practitioner (GP) consultations in Australia began increasing in the mid-1990s.
Following the rising community concerns about the increasing costs, the Australian Government introduced the Strengthening Medicare reforms in 2004 and 2005, which included a targeted incentive for GPs to charge zero OOP costs for consultations provided to children and concession cardholders (older adults and the poor), as well as an increase in the reimbursement for all GP visits.
This paper examines the impact of those reforms using longitudinal survey and administrative data from a large national sample of women.
