The Federal Government is expected to announce its medical indemnity rescue package this month. It’s been rumoured that the package will involve a reimbursement for medical defence organisations for half of their claim payouts if the claims are higher than $2million. That could leave the Government with quite a hefty bill.

The plan is aimed at helping doctors and their insurers cope with the current troubles in the medical indemnity market that were brought on by the collapse of UMP earlier this year. There is said to be more than $350 million worth of unfunded liabilities coming from UMP alone.

But the anticipated plan is also understood to involve the ACCC which will be given the role of monitoring doctors’ indemnity premiums and will recoup any cost incurred by imposing a levy on doctors. Although this would prevent it from directly impacting on the Government’s budget, the Government has already allocated $500 million to deal with the crisis.

As for the levy, details are not yet known, but according to Australian Doctor magazine, the rescue plan proposes the levy be imposed on doctors' indemnity premiums rather than their incomes.

They expect the levy is likely to cost GPs up to $5,000 over several years and specialists even more.

Meanwhile, AMA Vice-President Trevor Mudge has expressed his support for the Ipp panel’s proposed negligence reforms, saying it “sets out a more realistic approach to the standard of care that can be reasonably expected of competent medical practitioners”.