The problems in public liability and professional indemnity have affected a wide range of businesses and professions, but the medical profession still seems to think it’s special. A small number of bulk-billing NSW doctors have begun charging extra fees of up to $6 per patient, apparently so they can meet the increased cost of their indemnity premiums following the collapse of United Medical Indemnity.

Federal Health Minister Kay Patterson has warned patients to avoid visiting doctors who charge this fee. “I say to the doctors there will be a resolution to this crisis and that they should be patient. And I say to the patients, if your doctor wants to charge a medical indemnity on top of the normal fee, then perhaps you should visit another GP.”

Senator Patterson also asked doctors not to “profiteer” from the medical indemnity crisis. She said a non-procedural GP has no justification for charging the $6 fee. But the AMA disagrees, saying doctors under pressure have had to increase consultation fees or drop bulk billing.

AMA President Kerryn Phelps said doctors are struggling to stay in practice. “The doctors being attacked by the minister are mostly rural GPs,” Dr Phelps said. “It is a gross insult to accuse these doctors of profiteering.”

And although the AMA wants to abolish people’s rights to sue doctors for personal injury and instead replace it with a no-fault compensation scheme similar to that used in New Zealand, the plan does not seem likely to get the Federal Government’s backing.

Victoria Law Reform Commissioner Marcia Neave, a key instigator of the state and federal governments’ medical indemnity reforms, said last week that the changes are unlikely to go the way doctors’ groups want them to, and proposed a plan that will enable patients to either choose to sue or resolve claims through mediation.

“Our terms of reference don’t propose some sort of no-fault scheme,” she said. “What they are looking at is some sort of integrated scheme to deal with the negligence system.”