MEDICARE is now being billed over one million times a day for the first time in history, according to Health Minister Sussan Ley.
Ms Ley said new figures show growth in claims outstripped the number of new patients three-to-one over the past decade
Ms Ley released the annual Medicare figures for 2014-15, which showed 21 million Australians accessed more than 368 million individual services on the Medicare Benefit Schedule (MBS) at a cost to taxpayers of over $20 billion.
"About 90% of the population accessed Medicare last year, with taxpayers billed an average of 17 times per patient at a cost of over $800 each in 2014-15," Ms Ley said.
"Or to put it another way, Medicare was billed an average of one million times every single day last year - the first time this has ever happened."
Ms Ley said Medicare usage had continued to skyrocket, with MBS claims increasing by about 60% over the past decade and the overall bill to taxpayers increasing 100 per cent.
She said this was despite the number of new patients accessing Medicare growing at just 21% over the same 10-year period (population growth was 19% between 2004-05 and 2014-15).
"Medicare claims are now an average of $350 a year higher than they were 10 years ago," Ms Ley said.
"Essentially, we've seen the number of Medicare claims triple the growth in new patients over the past decade. This has in turn seen the cost to taxpayers double.
Other statistics released today show bulk billing rates continued to grow to historic highs in 2014-15 at 77.6 per cent for all services (77.2 per cent in 2013-14) and 84.5 per cent for GPs specifically (83.4% per cent in 2013-14).
Really? It cost me nearly $400 to get an ultrasound on my hip recently, with $90 refundable on Medicare. They wouldn't bulk bill. How do pensioners afford that? Do they get it free on benefits? Or do they just live with the pain?
