There is an absurd amount of misinformation in the comments. Something that people are all missing (and is relevant) is that almost every GP in Australia works privately - there are almost no salaried public GPs, due to many reasons but mainly because state governments run (but don’t quite fund) healthcare and don’t as a rule build or own GP clinics. So why are people talking about what GPs ‘should be’ paid? Do you ask this stuff of architects? Lawyers? Engineers? No. You let the market decide, because this is supposed to be AusFinance.
Now, I happen to think that GPs *should* have the option of being public salaried employees in a public healthcare system, but that doesn’t happen in Australia. If it did happen they’d no doubt be on the same kind of state wide awards that the consultants in hospitals are, for the same kind of reasons and hours, ie typically 4 shifts/8 sessions a week.
This deserves more upvotes.
Let’s question if this is even the right question to ask.
Why is the salary of a health professional (whom the recent data says is already often burnt out helping) under the microscope when we should be looking at the system that got us here?
Why, on top of all their clinical stuff, do they then need to “do business” and make hard decisions to balance equity and sustainability?
Perhaps the better question than the one in this thread should be: “how should the system work?” to reward and incentivise good GP work and also provide equity? I saw elsewhere someone mentioned US and UK/NHS systems are a mess… so what system would work best?
Public salaried GPs (typically rural generalised who choose not to work as / cannot get employment as a med super with right to private practice) do work on that exact pay scale in Queensland. It's an agreed upon entitlement in the MOCA6 (our enterprise bargaining agreement). Also have GPs work in public ED as salaried medical officers to cover training gaps and they get paid on that same scale
Yeah that’s why I said ‘almost all’. One of the big problems for GP reform apart from RACGP itself is that the needs of rural areas are very different and solutions that will work for cities will potentially wreck healthcare in the bush. Especially small hospitals that use GPs as attending physicians either in ED or for inpatients with admitting rights.
There are lots of conflicting interests at play. From the point of view of an ED doctor, I really want the general public to be able to get accessible GP appointments, for free at point of care. GPs catch almost all the new cancers and manage almost all the preventative heart, lung and diabetes stuff that are the leading causes of death. We need the public to see GPs - they are specially trained for the primary care role that keeps people living healthy lives rather than just crumbling into a heap at 65 just as they retire and spending the next 20 years morbid and miserable.
If people want to enjoy their retirement, we need GPs - AusFinance has been warned!
Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not sorry. The poor mostly just died, mate, often of conditions that were partially treatable even back in the day. Often young, and far too often they were tragically young. There is a lot of frustration and rage in the community at the moment and a lot of it is being directed at GPs, and a lot of people are saying all they do is referrals, but effective primary care is the number one way for doctors to be supporting people living healthy, fulfilling lives. They add more QALYs to people than I do in ED. They’re the natural continuation of the “family doctor”, the “village doctor”, the “village healer”. Do people really think they have no role? Maybe mostly-healthy city people within easy reach of a metro ED have forgotten.
But THERE IS gatekeeping in how many doctors enter the system.
Especially specialists. It's a big problem in dermatology and why we have ridiculous waiting lists. We have plenty of intelligent doctors who have gone through the tertiary and hospital system who are capable of becoming specialists. But no, they keep the supply low and incomes very high.
Also, university enrolments.. we have smart and capable people with high GPAs that are not accepted into medicine. It's not because of their abilities and potential. It's because of the set quota.
There is indeed gatekeeping, which happens at multiple levels, and not many of them have anything to do with GP numbers.
Remember that in Australia all citizen/PR grads of med are guaranteed an intern job at the end of their training which is part of the provisional registration (i.e. when you graduate med you have a further year of supervised practice in a hospital setting which has strict hospital accreditation requirements for intern training). The number of med students funded by the Aus govt is linked to the number of intern positions required by the health care services and has absolutely nothing to do with the number of specialists (since the number of specialist training spots is vastly smaller than the number of graduating med students).
There are usually at least 2 and often a lot more years spent as a resident trying to get onto specialty training. The training numbers are more or less determined by the colleges of training involved, all of them are different. *These* bottlenecks are relevant to most specialities but not GP training, which is undersubscribed for training probably due to combination of pay and the location of training sites.
Then there are the large number of doctors who despite being good doctors end up failing or otherwise leaving their training and never becoming specialists - they don’t automatically become GPs of course (because GP is a speciality and requires another training pathway), they’re mostly just around doing surgical assisting, CMO and locum jobs.
So there aren’t really bottlenecks to GP training apart from a small number of technically difficult requirements (e.g. getting hospital paediatric time and women’s health time accredited, passing exams) that are important for a GP skill set.
In the old days all doctors could practice as a GP after X number of years working in hospitals. Those days are long gone. Bringing it back would no doubt boost GP numbers but would you take the hit in GP skill? I wouldn’t. The health outcomes would be a disaster.
I may be out of touch here, but my experience with GP's lately, mostly immigrants, seems to have taken a "hit in GP skill". I was prescribed nose drops, at half the strength they are available OTC. I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said, just wondering if the skill decline would be even noticed?
Overseas GPs who are filling the gaps in demand for GP services due to there not being enough GPs due to…GPs not being paid enough, amongst other reasons…
This is exactly what I meant when I said people wouldn’t like the consequences.
It's not a free market to begin with, the supply of doctors is determined by market forces, government policy and standards boards. Since it's not a free market to begin with, people should be able to comment freely on what someone should be paid, hopefully they are actually educated on the topic though first. What doctors are paid entirely depends on demand and supply, governments have a huge part in determining both.
When any professional gets protected by the government, they lose part of the ability to say "don't question what I'm worth, it's just the market baby". Also this assumes the market is perfect which it never is fully
Which would be fine except that for GPs there is no public element of their practice for the most part (i.e. no salaried positions). They work as private practitioners and can charge what they like to achieve the business outcomes they are seeking. The government Medicare rebate is to *consumers* to allow less costly access to private GPs. The GP system is *not* directed for the public good by health departments.
In my opinion as I’ve stated above, this is not a good thing. However, it is the way the system works. Traditionally, government intervention in private pricing is frowned upon across all industries right?
There is an *under supply* of GPs- posts saying that GPs are underpaid are way out of touch. You can’t force med students to choose GP as a specialty (the college decides who to allow into training, as with all specialities, by law). If the community wants more GPs, students need to freely choose it just like any other career. Do we live in a free country or not? And if the students aren’t choosing it, why do you think that is?
EDIT - and just to rant a little longer, if you’ll forgive me - suppose you go full dictator and demand that X% of students become GPs. How do you deal with the cognitive dissonance of the community screaming ‘we want free GP!’ and ‘we want good GPs who are motivated and listen to us’ at them same time? If you send people into a job they don’t want to do, what do you think you’ll get?
The cost of medical salaries is a *small thing* in the budget. There aren’t many of us, remember? I suggest focussing on structural things that would actually help the community live the lives they want to live.
I am not suggesting that gp salaries are too high or too low. I just don't agree that it is a total free market, everything from licensing, prescription laws and rebates is intervention. The rest of it is a free market though as you said.
No not all government intervention is frowned upon, the free market has many issues that can have better outcomes with government intervention, the trick is knowing when an intervention will lead to good or bad outcomes.
I don't like the word shortage to describe anything where prices or wages can change freely, but yes if you mean not enough supply of GPS to keep prices the same in real terms then yes GPs has a growing shortage. Deloitte did a report on GP demand and supply in the future and it looked grim.
GPs choose other specialities because they pay more. Government subsidies have only just been updated I think 🤔, but before that they have not grown in many years, making GP roles less desirable. So if the government wants prices to level out they need to increase the supply of GPs. Can incentivise it more or force more supply through other means.
My personal thoughts on GP wages is somewhere in between what British GPS are paid (which is forced down too much in my opinion by the NHS monopsony, I looked up wages and was shocked) and USA where doctor supply per capita is low outcomes suck and wages are very high. I don't know enough about the sector to make a more precise assesment. I'd read the Deloitte study on doctor supply and demand, although I don't think that gets into the wages, it's more of an outcome of the demand and supply assessment.
Yes, I agree for the most part. What I was trying to (badly) clarify was that in Australia there is a clear division between public and private healthcare, and in the private side of things the doctors can charge what they want, whether that’s orthopaedics, dermatology, ophthalmology, GP, etc. The general public fairly consistently makes the incorrect assumption that GPs are part of the public system, and they absolutely are not.
I think we *should* have a public GP system with GPs on salaried contracts, but we do not have one of those. They are private. Therefore, regardless of the degree to which it is a free market, no one has a say on what they charge apart from the GPs themselves.
I should say also that I do very much believe that applying free market principles to healthcare is a *bad thing*, but we have the system we have, and it isn’t GPs who are at fault. They’re copping too much blame at the moment for things that are solely the government’s fault and by extension, the voting populace.
"So why are people talking about what GPs ‘should be’ paid? Do you ask this stuff of architects? Lawyers? Engineers? No. You let the market decide, because this is supposed to be AusFinance."
I think GPs should be paid $400K. I think the free market should land around there. I don't think it should be mandated.
I think Lawyers/Engineers should be paid $160-$180KK. I think the free market should land there. I don't think it should be mandated.
They need to make near the same as other medical specialities or we will continue to not get more GP’s. In my cohort of 180 students I know of only 6 who want to become a G.P and we are in our final year. Granted many more may become one if they cannot get into their speciality of choice, but the fact is that there will be less and less GP’s in the years to come until there is equity among specialty pay.
I think the reality is that local students will choose not to become GPs in preference for other specialities due to worse pay and conditions. The government will then reason that the GP shortage is due to Australian medical students not wanting to be GPs. They'll use this as their rational for bringing in more foreign trained doctors as well as broadening the scope of other health care professionals or creating new jobs (physician assistant) altogether.
But it's not about how much training is needed. It's supply and demand. If there is a critical shortage of GPs, they should be able to command whatever number they want.
Gp as a first choice is usually done it if lifestyle and they understand that the pay may not be as good as other specialties. But with a gap and building a good space it can pay very well
But many GP's are drop outs from other specialties as it's an easier and shorter program than many others.
Also in the medical field every other specialty looks down on GP being the "easy way out", which makes people not choose GP out of peer pressure. That leaves people who value lifestyle and can cut out the noise (the rare good GPs), the ones who were dropkicks from the start (the awful GPs) and the ones burnt by the hospital system (the ok, but jaded GPs). There's also skilled labour migration which can be a mixed bag.
Fortunately married to one of the good GPs. Pulls a comfy $200K while working 30hrs and has a loyal base of patients cos she listens to their problems instead of churning them out for billables.
it does though, as you dont need to get all of the positions filled by people who want it as a first preferance.
filling supply with people who may have it as a second or third preferance still creates the same supply as somone that has it as their first choice.
There is a diffrence between it doesnt change the supply/demand for GP's (as you claimed) and supply is sufficiant.
but you already knew that right.....
I don’t like the way he worded it but he’s not wrong. Several GPs have either attempted to get on or come from other training programs not because they aren’t capable to complete the requirements but often due to the speciality being easier on WLB and more congruent with family life.
The original comment didn’t say most it said many, I’d argue with the current climate most medical students aren’t wanting to go GP. I would love the diverse mix of GP personally if it didn’t pay so poorly, constantly have the public ragging on it and have constant downward Medicare rebate pressure. Most of my cohort feel the same way, but I can see them changing their minds later in the hospital years when the 70 hour weeks burn them out and 40 hour weeks seem like an attractive proposition. From people I’ve talked to on placement and my own GP placements I’ve seen this be a theme for many regs. Maybe not the majority but many.
So why do you class that as dropping out from other specialities? They've made a conscious decision to pursue GP as it best met their requirements for a career.
Most GPs voluntarily pursue GP training. Only a small handful are forced into as a consequence of dropping out of something else and having no other reasonable option.
My gripe is the notion that GPs are the drop-outs of other specialities and/or the low performers of medical school when in reality it is one of the hardest specialities out there.
I didn’t say that in my original comment I even acknowledged that the original comment worded it horribly(but you would call someone who left training dropping out of training even though like I said it’s a horrible way of putting it). I also explained the reason why I believe that’s so and it sounds like you agree with me. To clarify for anyone else reading GPs are just as competent doctors and the workload often isn’t easier than any other consultant. It’s only the training years which are more flexible.
All? No.
Most? Unsure.
Many? Yes. Many are drop-outs from other specialties.
Even worse, some barely passed residency and didn't even bother with other specialties.
There's a handful that have their head screwed on and actively chose GP for the lifestyle and their skill/ interest suitability for role description.
As a current doctor with many GPs in my circles - what you have said is absolutely false and is a common misconception from those who just clearly have no idea of the workings of the health care system or the training decisions that junior doctors make.
Weird then cos my wife's a GP, so although I'm not experiencing it first hand, I've heard the same story from her and her social group, as well as my own friends who practice medicine. Possible we have different anecdotal experiences.
Unfortunately we can't just go around asking GPs "did you choose GP because you settled and failed your specialisation?" expecting an honest answer.
I would argue that someone who may have been interested in derm but didn't want to do a PhD but now is a GP who does skin as a special interest is not a drop out from derm.
I would imagine that this example is the case for a fair number of current GPs/GP trainees. It doesn't mean they are bad doctors or less smart or unable to get on a "better" program but as I said previously, they have made a conscious decision to pursue GP as it was a better fit for their career/life goals.
Sounds like you're just a little sensitive about the term "drop out"
Without any of the negative connotations (I never mentioned they were bad doctors or less smart, although I would definitely prefer to go to a GP who wanted to do GP from the get go as they're likely more motivated), they would formally fit the definition of a "drop out", since they didn't complete their training.
The skill of GPs varies but I work in health and I have a lot of respect for someone who has to generalise in all specialities and still takes good care of a patient in a 10min appt system.
Idk man some of the other specialties require way more training to get to $500k/year. If GPs get paid that much I think it'll be a significant burden on the health system.
Gotta consider how quickly people become GPs too, most of my GP friends specialise slightly before they turn 30 while their colleagues are still grinding exams after exams + nightmarish 70-hour weeks to get into a training program of other specialties.
It might be because of the sort of personalities that are attracted to the modern medical education system where the most ambitious and "Type A" of personalities get in, hence why many don't want to settle with being "Just a GP" because it's seen as 'less worthy' of honor than other specialties.
Maybe we should allow overseas trained GPs (like those from the UK/NZ) to specialise as GPs without a moratorium requiring them to move practices in a move to protect locally trained GPs — I can see why the RACGP wants to have these anti-competitive laws in place to protect the local grads, but I'm not sure if it's working to help the affordability of the system, seeing that we take in so many overseas trained doctors in the hospitals anyway, many of whom would choose lower salaries for better work-life balance.
The other problem is that there is no "Free Market" in healthcare: the average patient won't be able to clearly evaluate the differences between a 'good' GP and a 'bad' GP, so it's hard to rely on the market alone to incentivised more virtuous and skilled GPs over not so good ones.
I think a salaried GP should be able to make 250k plus super + holidays, sick leave and long service leave. Most GPs are sole traders and therefore dont get sick leave, annual leave or long service leave.
If you want to incentivise the best students to become doctors you need to pay accordingly.
What super high achiever has $250k as their dream 'i can take whatever for this money' salary?
Remember this is to entice people into the field. 250k is not aspirational for anyone, unless it's 9-3 3 days a week with 26 weeks off. Even then that's not great as the capstone of your career with 15+ years spent training.
Which comes at a cost to the GP, if we take sick leave for two days then it’s two days of lost income. If we take a two week holiday we lose two weeks of income.
My point was that a business analyst might be on 130k plus all the benefits a year as a salaried position but when they contract they get 1000 a day. The reduction in benefits and job security requires significantly higher compensation to the point that a 250k salaried position might be more like 350 - 400k per annum as a contractor.
“pick up a speciality” it’s not like “pick up an extra shift to save for my holiday”… it’s a lifestyle and pivotal career choice that involves a lot of trade off, both in time with family and perhaps a trade off in values :)
How dare you suggest salaries should be set according to the market/supply and demand rather than an arbitrary number! We love arbitrary numbers here thank you very much
Not what I meant… perhaps the few doctors choosing to be a GP genuinely value serving their local community.
I’ve also met some lovely specialists who have done very skill-full work that changed the quality of my life. But I don’t want a specialist who is only there because working as a GP didn’t pay enough for them.
There are definitely some, but they’re few and far between.
Now that you mention it: all of the kind, caring specialists I’ve met have worked in oncology or an adjacent specialty.
Lower than other specialists? You do know that other specialists are in a “top-heavy” field, with too many of them to go around? The fact is, we need more GPs, the OP is asking what we need to do to incentivise more Doctors going into GP.
Do we actually need more? Maybe rurally?
I've gone to clinics and half the GP books are empty/half full.
It's really common. Yeah you get the GP who's booked out all the time because they're popular with a certain demographic. The rest? They're half empty.
If you don't believe me, go on hot doc and have a look.
$300k + with guaranteed annual minimum pay rises tied to inflation.
One of the biggest reasons the bulk billing system does not work is that is does not keep up with inflation very well while all the other equipment the doctors need continues to increase.
With our aging population we need to incentivise new grads to take on GP work and not specialise. We are seeing the first ripples of the wave that is boomers hitting the most expensive and financially expensive period of their lives healthcare wise.
The cost of losing GP's is severe.
If the question is “how much do I think the role is worth?” (as a purely isolated question, i.e., not considering medicare, bulk billing, or the actual nature of employment) - $300k + super, 4 day week, standard holidays/leave etc.
That’s a basic GP. If they offer specialities (e.g., antenatal care, IUD fittings, minor skin surgeries) then more based on their skills.
It seems about the right rate for a highly specialised and valued service.
It's not really about how much they should be paid.
The market is saying a consult is worth on average 100 dollars.
Individual GPs which are highly sought after will make more, others less.
The socialists of reddit could say... we get to decide what you're worth....Good luck maintaining a burnt out post COVID workforce with that mentality.
Thats $100 out of pocket for pt, then theres the Medicare rebate on top of that.
They need to be paid a high living wage...$300k for 'employed' GPs (who dont have business interest in the GP practice), higher again if they own the GP practice and take on that responsibility.
Specialists earn considerably more than that especially if they are a surgeon or a sought after specialist.
> Thats $100 out of pocket for pt, then theres the Medicare rebate on top of that.
I'm struggling with the maths here. Current consult fee might be $100, with $40 rebate to the patient from Medicare, right?
lets do some maths on that $100 per consult.
$100 per consult, 15 minute consults, and a 40 hour work week.
~~That's $4000 per week or $208,000/year.~~
~~Some doctors will even make 10 minute appointments making that over $300k per year.~~
thats $16,000 per week, or about $640k per year (based on 40 working weeks to account for hollidays, sick leave public hollidays etc)
and thats before anything they may or may not get from medicare.
~~The only thing that needs to change if the medicare rates need to increase to be in line with acctual costs.~~
edit: apparently I cant math. but fixing the numbers thats more than a far pay based on comments here, even after a revenue split with the clinc and accounting for costs like insurance etc.
Not sure how you arrived at those figures.
@ 4 consults per hour X 8 hr day = 32 consults per day.
32 consults X $100 = $3,200 daily revenue or $16,000 weekly revenue.
Assuming a 70% revenue split. GP pockets $11,200 per week.
The actual maths is for this mixed billed consult:
Patient pays $100. Medicare pays the patient $40. The patient is out of pocket $60.
The practice receives $100. The practice takes around 35% tenancy fee for supply of the room, staff, equipment, and other overheads. The practice earns $35 revenue.
The doctor makes $65 revenue. From that, the GP needs to pay their own overheads including AHPRA registration, college registration, medical indemnity insurance, continuing professional education costs, own equipment costs, etc. This includes an approximately 5% profit margin in order to make some actual money to pay for their life too.
A GP would commonly work 8 sessions seeing patients a week. A session is effectively half a day. That's a 4 day week of paid work. There is a lot of unpaid work including results review, writing letters for lawyers in workers compensation and divorce or domestic abuse cases, and lots of paper shuffling required by the government.
So at 4 patients per hour, 4 hours per session with *completely* mixed billed patients (no bulk billing, which is not realistic), that's $65x4x4x8=$8192 revenue per week before overheads and taxes. $393,216 revenue per year.
Assuming $20,000 in tax deductions, that's about $144,212 tax payable. So $393,212-$144,212= $249,000. Now put away 11% for super ($27,390), and the take home income is about _$221,610_, or $4616 a week.
That's for a GP who does not bulk bill and consistently does a full set of sessions at 4 patients an hour, so almost all GPs would be a quite bit less than that, especially female GPs.
If you did the maths but replaced all consultations with bulk billing, the GP's revenue is $167,731. That's an after tax income, assuming same $20k in deductions, of $108,004. Subtract 11% for super, and the take home is $96,123 or $2002 a week.
These are the approximate extremes: $2000/wk or $4600/wk.
Now, GPs are registered as specialist doctors with AHPRA once they have achieved fellowship. Compare that income to the non-GP specialists, add the meddling by state and federal governments and then it makes sense why people aren't choosing GP. Yes, it pays a doctor's salary, but less than most other specialities.
>A GP would commonly work 8 sessions seeing patients a week. A session is effectively half a day. That's a 4 day week of paid work.
I'm not sure where your getting that from but its very uncommon in my area for a GP not to work 5 days a week seeing paitents, but lets run with that for the sake of numbers.
>$393,216 revenue per year.
lets be honets thats a hell of a good salary package, even if you take off $100k per year (almost certainly far more then the real cost of these items) in costs for the registations, insurance, continuing education etc, thast still almost $300k per year after those expenses and they would all be tax deductable.
>Now put away 11% for super ($27,390), and the take home income is about $221,610, or $4616 a week.
I'm not sure why your bothering with this calcualtion since every job has tax and super to come out, its not like its unique to medicine or even GP's.
>Compare that income to the non-GP specialists
if we are compairing the pay, lets also include the extra years of study they do, diffrent working conditions and costs they have, diffrences in work life balance etc etc etc.
pay is one part of the equation, but not the only one, and with all the other factors its acctully not as uncompetetive as you make it sound.
I'm glad you appreciated my effort to explain.
In these threads we have people complaining that most GPs don't work 5 days a week. We also have people doing the maths and saying that most do work 5 days. It's not about days, it's about sessions. Many GPs work 8 sessions whether that's over 4 or 5 days.
You took the top extreme in revenue (without removing the tax) as a great salary package, which it is. I also explained this is a highly unlikely scenario. Just as unlikely is the bottom end, which you didn't seem to mention. Since a GP is a contractor, they have to subtract their own super from their income, as they are their own employer. So that's highly relevant in terms of their disposable income.
A GP does 2-3 years specialty training on top of the 8 years it takes to become a practising doctor. A surgeon might do 5 years on top of the 8 years. Is that 2-3 year training difference worth a comparatively higher salary in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars for their entire career? Is a dermatologist on-call for those urgent rashes? How about the radiologist doing 9-5 in a private practice and seeing 2 or 3 patients a day?
>You took the top extreme as a great salary package
its not really the top extreame though, its far closer to the average gp then either end, its the average GP working in a clinc seeing paitents at market rates, and $100 for a standard consult is an average rate these days with many doctors charging more.
At the bottom end they would be working for somone else, removing most of the costs and risks from them, so its hardly compariable as we are trying to do here.
>Since a GP is a contractor, they have to subtract their own super from their income
Considering most salaries regardless of industry are inclusive of super its not limited to self employed people, removing it from the GP's but not compariables is compairing apples to oranges.
>Is that 2-3 year training difference worth a comparatively higher salary in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars for their entire career?
The extra training and extra costs they have certainly does. not to mention the worse work life balance and working conditions they have to work with.
>Is a dermatologist on-call
yea of course they can be, they specilise in skin, not rashes.
>How about the radiologist doing 9-5 in a private practice and seeing 2 or 3 patients a day?
again, higher levels of training and costs, and much of their work is done outside of seeing patients such as doing reports etc.
It’s always fun to do maths but it has no basis in reality. You also continue to miss the point. The cost is 100. It doesn’t matter how much it adds up to.
For all the training they do and how important they are for health in the community definitely $300k+, I don’t want someone earning peanuts, not caring about what they do or doing a shitty job and misdiagnosing my child’s cancer or something like that.
In line with that I also think there should be rigorous testing, re-testing and intense regulations to make sure shonky doctors aren’t allowed to practice.
Yes that is bulk billing. I worked in HR. I've worked in the health sector in HR. I literally see their pay.
You know when someone sees the nurse for a vaccine. Yeah that's a medicare bill.
You know when you email the front desk to ask for a script repeat. Yep. That's a consult.
I think AHPRA would be very interested to hear about these emails that Medicare are being charged for despite there being no consult. I'm sure that there's an appropriate item number and that you're not just admitting to overseeing fraud online (if those repeats are being charged under bulk billing like you imply).
They should get a fat salary from the government, and work in a government funded practice that pays for all the overheads, insurance and admin support.
Health care should not be run for profit.
I agree with you but you only need to look at the governments track record on indexing Medicare to see what would happen.
Same thing is happening in Canada and half the country doesn’t have access to a GP as they’re leaving the industry (and coming here lol) in droves
The whole point that this argument is even up for debate on reddit speaks volumes to what will happen if the government continues making out doctors are the baddies here.
Half the people here will pay an extra $2 per piece of chicken at KFC but get upset when the same cost pressures are applied to keeping them alive
If we pay people on what they contribute to society, GPs should be paid a lot. More than bankers, tech workers, management consultants.
I think if we talk about how much GPs are worth, we really should talk about how much everyone is worth and get that sorted out because the incentives for smart people to become doctors probably aren’t as high as they should be. Same for teachers.
About what they make now. Maybe a bit more. It's a highly skilled job.
Picking at what they are paid is diversionary from the fact that the successive governments have eroded medicare.
As much as they can. Just cause they work to benefit the community does not mean they should work for Penny's.
The insurance and lack of entitlements what ever it is it should be more.
Trades that are Fifo are pushing $100hr plus a shit load of entitlements and allowances so I'd say $200hr+ but
As someone who does their taxes and works with them often, GPs get paid more than that.
At a minimum you have about 1000 per day at about a patient every 10 minutes and some admin. This being said there are GPs who are taking the piss seeing 70-80 patients a day. It's high volume work and the admin is ridiculous so the shit ones skimp on note taking and doing proper examinations. Not uncommon to see a GP on 300k to 400k.
A lot of GP clinics aren't owned by GPs so you're also finding a profit for a clinic owner who is increasingly a private health or superannuation fund.
Specialists earn way more. A surgeon can break 500k without sweating and I've had clients making 1m plus. However, you're a doctor and nothing else at that point. Hobbies? Maybe a round of golf or a walk with the kids every now and then before you go back to study.
I can't dictate what another profession should be paid especially with the fees I charge my clients. However if I had to make a recommendation, remove the need to get PHI to avoid the surcharge . The profits they're making could be put into our public system and benefit everyone.
At least enough to ease the burden on hospitals and incentivise more people to be GPs over specialists.
Huge pipeline issue currently and it's not great for our healthcare.
Source? I know many GPs, my father is one, and at only 3 face-to-face work days a week in his 60s, he’s still doing >32 hours most weeks not including his ongoing training.
If they are working 5 days a week for 7-10 hours then 200k-300k (should depend heavily on experience and expertise) seems like a good balance of incentivising the profession without paying so much that other aspects of the health system can't get adequate funding. Some people are here saying it should always be over 300k but some Doctors I've seen aren't worth half that and paying all doctors so much will only mean the Healthcare system will have to be even more stingy when paying nurses (the Government isn't willing to increase Healthcare spending enough to do both).
Problem with paying that is, any GP or senior unspecialised doctor can go work in emergency as a CMO or a Locum and make 2k or more a day, so what's the incentive in being a community GP at all?
I would say 75k per day a week worked on a 46 week working year. So you work 4 days a week you get 300k etc. I am a non consultant ICU doctor and make more than that. I'm going to change career to become a GP for a change in scenery in a year... I'd hope to paid as much as I get paid now...
You can easily train more doctors, badly.
Doctors are very cheap in third world countries, but if that's the kind of care you're looking for I don't think you'll be in the majority.
Even at current training levels the degree of experience that recent graduates receive is far diminished from even 10 years ago - many current registrars are finishing their training and deciding to do more years pursuing fellowships in recognition that they are 'undercooked'.
There are also many who work at multiple clinics in a week. So while they're only available at clinic A twice a week, they're at clinic B thrice a week. If you go to clinic A, a patient might make assumptions about how much that GP works.
Medical fraternity drinking the self sacrifice cool-aid shocked that nobody else is impressed when they expect everyone else martyr themselves for the job.
Strong disagree here.
Doctors training is far more long and brutal than anything else I've come across, the JMO years particularly so. With that comes poor outcomes, like doctors having high suicide rates, or having to take large amounts of time off due to burnout mid-training.
If you want more doctors availability, we just need more doctors. Not more burnout in the doctors we already have.
You don't see the work behind the scenes such as after hours nursing home visits, review of patient results, attendance at educationals. A GP working 4 days in the clinic might be working 5 days in other ways.
My wife is a manager at a medical clinic and she manages the doctors pay. They get roughly $15K a fortnight. There are instances where they get $30k a fortnight!
140 - 300k
140k for the foreign, lesser educated, lesser trained... it's true and I don't care saying it.
300k for the upper echelon, where patients are prepared to pay a premium for private, out of normal hour visits.
Hot take but I think it should be far less than the the majority of comments saying $250k+. Downvotes to the left.
In my opinion doctors in general are grossly overpaid by a huge degree. An anaesthetist shouldn't be paid a million dollars for what they do and neither should any other medical professional even come close.
$200k is already so far above the majority of careers that the arguments of "we need to attract talent" are already solved. People seem to have this notion that doctors need to be paid exorbitant amounts of money otherwise patients will start to receive a low standard of care. Every GP I see is already jaded and bad at their job and it's not rare to hear that same story.
There is no argument that could be made to justify a half a million dollar salary for a doctor that isn't solved by just reforming the current system of how we train doctors and operate hospitals/medical centres with the exception potentially of rural medicine.
Lol, how much do you think anaesthetists should be paid? If you want, next time you have something done in private ask them to rustle up a registrar to look after you instead.
Peak Reddit is looking through my profile to find something super outdated to use as a personal attack instead of actually responding to my points.
Yes I worked from home a lot mostly during covid years and spent some part of my day playing video games. This does not mean a surgeon should be pulling in $900k a year.
Oh you're talking about my post about setting up a separate WFH setup? LOL I literally said I don't focus for 8 hours straight and you take that to mean video games all day.
Holy shit I didn't think you were reaching that hard. Creeping through someone's post history is already sad enough but yikes man. You couldn't even respond to any of my points even after being called out for it, find something better to do with your time if the best you've got is to stalk through someone's profile.
I was curious why you would go through people's profiles so I checked yours and not only have you obviously done the same to other commenters, you're also clearly from the industry and hence incredibly biased to keep the good money coming. Pathetic.
Completely agree. There are some very good doctors out there, but they are hugely outnumbered by arrogant, incompetent, egotists in it for a pay check.
The current conditions people work in within the health care sector are rough, and need to be fixed. All the doctors pulling insane incomes could surely be reallocated to improve things for everyone, staff and patients.
>In my opinion doctors in general are grossly overpaid by a huge degree. An anaesthetist shouldn't be paid a million dollars for what they do and neither should any other medical professional even come close.
I agree, but I think the taxation system is the right avenue to be addressing this, not intervening into the salaries of different professions on an ad hoc basis.
To convert this to a salaried amount you would need to take out super, annual leave, sick leave, mandatory professional development time and the fact you have no long service leave entitlements.
Also want to add on there's all these additional costs of being a doctor. Medical registration 1k a year. Fees to be recognised by a training college ~1500 a year. Medical indemnity insurance 10k a year. Professional development course several thousand a year minimum.
This is the salaried amount. 11% super is on top of this. Annual leave is on top of this. Nurses who are paid 70k a year also have the same professional development requirements. As do many professions. They have long service leave requirements.
The example I provided was a GP who is an employee and has all those things
Medical registration... yes nurses pay for this to. So do teachers and psa's. Medical indemnity. I've actually filed the invoices it's about $1500 and many professions need indemnity. Lawn mower companies need it ffs.
Professional development through a provider is about $200 per course and you need about 6 every year. Again other professions need this and have much lower pay.
With how much you were adding that is part of other jobs why didn't you add the first aid requirement and the working with children check for good measure.
Ahpra for nurses and doctors is
grossly different ($180 vs $1000).
CPD home is a minimum of $800- nurses do not pay for CPD management. You can meet your CPD requirements without having to pay for additional courses but yes sometimes they accrue a cost
The indemnity you are referencing is what your company pays to have the doctor there- the doctor has to have their own personal indemnity insurance as well (minimum $2000 for a non-proceduralist- I.e specialty that doens’t physically touch people)
Mandatory college fees run at a minimum of $2000 per year
Doctors working in any speciality where a nurse would be expected to have a first aid certificate, the doctor needs to have an advanced life support qualification (First aid =$49 vs ALS =495)
HECS debt for a nurse = approx $12000 (recently reduced by government initiatives)
HECS Debt for a doctor = $37000 A YEAR - so minimum $180000 ( recently increased by government initiatives
In NSW, with the recent round of pay rises, a PGY1 registered nurse earns about $2k more per year than a PGY1 doctor
Having graduated to both professions, I can tell you which one was harder on the hip pocket. Your comparison is bogus
Nurses have to pay for courses for their CPD. No one is providing it for free
Other specialities have to pay their own indemnity. A sole trader doing lawn work does.
No the doctor doesn't need advanced life support at all. First aid HLTAID004 is all that is needed.
Hecs debt reduces income at a percentile scale. Same as every industry.
I work in HR. I literally file the invoices. Your argument is stupidly flawed. Like a plumber has higher overheads ffs
With absolutely no research into it or critical thinking applied, just as an average Joe trying to imagine what sounds reasonable and fair, 180k after expenses and tax.
Whatever the market decides
We however should supply the market with more doctors. Standards to get into an MD or MBBS is insanely high, we could double intake without dropping our standards much, and that would mean GP programs which are struggling to attract med students will have more students trying to apply.
Medicine is the only industry where an oversupply of workers is apparently bad. I don't follow that crap, I think it's harped up by the AMA to uphold their insane salaries.
Not more than 200k for very high skilled specialists. Average should be around 150k. They are robbing us now. Not providing bulk billing and pocketing 400k+
People in this sub are absolutely cooked, 300k a year ? On part time roflmao ... Right mate. AI is coming and it has access to all the combined knowledge that exist in the medical field so yeah go ahead and try to get your 300k in the next 5 years.
I think there should be regular GPs on 130k and highly accomplished GPs on 200k (at 38 hours per week)
The reason is that a large portion of GPs are professional Googlers or just inexperienced and they have no reason to strive to do better.
I would like to pay them, along side every other doctor in this country, good working conditions and a non toxic professional culture. In lieu of this, then 300k plus.
Meanwhile our nurses, radiologists, paramedics, midwives and allied health professionals who keep our healthcare in check earn a measly 100k and do the dirty work for GPs while our GPs are raking up $300k and drive to their workplaces in nice flashy cars. I believe that other health care professionals need better pay and keep GPs pay the same or slightly less to reduce the pay gap
100k out of uni, 10k per ‘specialty’. 10k per year of service, capped at 150k + specialty bonus.
Assuming bulk billing.
Anyone doing more than 4 years uni deserves more than average pay in their profession - even as a rookie.
The fact is if you pay them that much no one's going to become a GP.
First off, who's going to work their ass off through high school or uni, to go through 4-6 years MBBS/MD + 1 year internship + 1+ years residency + 4-6 years training for $150k?
And then who's going to do any of that when a base pay public consultant gets paid $300-400k (and much much more in the private sector)
What do you think GO’s get paid in most suburban, bulk-billing practices?
It’s not a lot - not enough.
I’d happily have them paid 250k, but I know it’s not economically viable, I think 150k is solid for a career GP, who just wants to help people, but without the pressure of a hositpal’s politics and pressures.
Family GP's, $120-$150k.
Family GP's are next to useless at providing decent advise. All they know how to do is prescribe antibiotics, give us sick notes for work and experts on sitting on their arse browsing their phones between patients because writing a stick note/prescribing antibiotics takes 1-2 minutes and they need to "see" each patient for 10 minutes.
Specialists should be the ones making $150-$250k, because they actually know something.
Surgeons should be making $250k-$400k, because they take the largest risk and require absolute expertise.
You’re actually proposing a pay cut for specialists and surgeons with your conception of salary. Specialists already make 250k minimum in the hospital if full time, that’s the absolute base for the lowest ranked specialist, it only goes up over time. Surgeons routinely clear 400-500k+ plus. Routinely.
Getting there is hard. Being a GP is easy. I've also worked as a receptionist at a family docs, so I know how easy it is. Majority of the patients are there for the flu or just want a sick note, and any cases which are remotely more difficult, you get a referral to a specialist slip.
Less than they make now, because we need to train more of them and basic economics dictates that will reduce price. There is no shortage of people that want to be doctors, just artificial constraints on supply (training) influenced by the AMA. I think $100k start, ratcheting up to $200k is more than enough money for people to be motivated into the profession for the right reasons. If you’re as money hungry as some doctors I’ve encountered, there are plenty of other industries that pay well.
200k is not enough for doctors. These are very smart people. They could make more than that in other industries.
They also give up many years of their lives to be in school with almost no money.
Unfortunately just because you are ‘smart’ does not at all show that you have good worth ethic and follow up. Some doctors are a waste of time and have no idea about treatment,
Follow up and even basic bedside manner
I'm really interested in hearing your understanding of how GPs and other specialists are trained and how that fits into your understanding of how supply (training) can be expanded?
No I don’t. We need to put more kids through medicine, UNSW is currently offering places to 6% of applicants. That will fill the vacant GP training programs.
No more than 200K base for an experienced GP. AI can pretty much do the job better than a Doctor. An issue with AI is that treatments can be sponsored by big-pharma. Diagnoses can be biased by metrics too.
Edit: Seems like too many are raising their points of view to the wrong person. It will happen and it is happening. That is all.
every shiny new tech we think it’s the solution.
AI is not ready unless your case is simple or stereotypical.
Then the expectations on productivity increases and price decreases. They’ll work just as hard to see twice the patients.
There is an absurd amount of misinformation in the comments. Something that people are all missing (and is relevant) is that almost every GP in Australia works privately - there are almost no salaried public GPs, due to many reasons but mainly because state governments run (but don’t quite fund) healthcare and don’t as a rule build or own GP clinics. So why are people talking about what GPs ‘should be’ paid? Do you ask this stuff of architects? Lawyers? Engineers? No. You let the market decide, because this is supposed to be AusFinance. Now, I happen to think that GPs *should* have the option of being public salaried employees in a public healthcare system, but that doesn’t happen in Australia. If it did happen they’d no doubt be on the same kind of state wide awards that the consultants in hospitals are, for the same kind of reasons and hours, ie typically 4 shifts/8 sessions a week.
This deserves more upvotes. Let’s question if this is even the right question to ask. Why is the salary of a health professional (whom the recent data says is already often burnt out helping) under the microscope when we should be looking at the system that got us here? Why, on top of all their clinical stuff, do they then need to “do business” and make hard decisions to balance equity and sustainability? Perhaps the better question than the one in this thread should be: “how should the system work?” to reward and incentivise good GP work and also provide equity? I saw elsewhere someone mentioned US and UK/NHS systems are a mess… so what system would work best?
Public salaried GPs (typically rural generalised who choose not to work as / cannot get employment as a med super with right to private practice) do work on that exact pay scale in Queensland. It's an agreed upon entitlement in the MOCA6 (our enterprise bargaining agreement). Also have GPs work in public ED as salaried medical officers to cover training gaps and they get paid on that same scale
Yeah that’s why I said ‘almost all’. One of the big problems for GP reform apart from RACGP itself is that the needs of rural areas are very different and solutions that will work for cities will potentially wreck healthcare in the bush. Especially small hospitals that use GPs as attending physicians either in ED or for inpatients with admitting rights. There are lots of conflicting interests at play. From the point of view of an ED doctor, I really want the general public to be able to get accessible GP appointments, for free at point of care. GPs catch almost all the new cancers and manage almost all the preventative heart, lung and diabetes stuff that are the leading causes of death. We need the public to see GPs - they are specially trained for the primary care role that keeps people living healthy lives rather than just crumbling into a heap at 65 just as they retire and spending the next 20 years morbid and miserable. If people want to enjoy their retirement, we need GPs - AusFinance has been warned!
How did anyone cope before widespread GP usage...
Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not sorry. The poor mostly just died, mate, often of conditions that were partially treatable even back in the day. Often young, and far too often they were tragically young. There is a lot of frustration and rage in the community at the moment and a lot of it is being directed at GPs, and a lot of people are saying all they do is referrals, but effective primary care is the number one way for doctors to be supporting people living healthy, fulfilling lives. They add more QALYs to people than I do in ED. They’re the natural continuation of the “family doctor”, the “village doctor”, the “village healer”. Do people really think they have no role? Maybe mostly-healthy city people within easy reach of a metro ED have forgotten.
But THERE IS gatekeeping in how many doctors enter the system. Especially specialists. It's a big problem in dermatology and why we have ridiculous waiting lists. We have plenty of intelligent doctors who have gone through the tertiary and hospital system who are capable of becoming specialists. But no, they keep the supply low and incomes very high. Also, university enrolments.. we have smart and capable people with high GPAs that are not accepted into medicine. It's not because of their abilities and potential. It's because of the set quota.
There is indeed gatekeeping, which happens at multiple levels, and not many of them have anything to do with GP numbers. Remember that in Australia all citizen/PR grads of med are guaranteed an intern job at the end of their training which is part of the provisional registration (i.e. when you graduate med you have a further year of supervised practice in a hospital setting which has strict hospital accreditation requirements for intern training). The number of med students funded by the Aus govt is linked to the number of intern positions required by the health care services and has absolutely nothing to do with the number of specialists (since the number of specialist training spots is vastly smaller than the number of graduating med students). There are usually at least 2 and often a lot more years spent as a resident trying to get onto specialty training. The training numbers are more or less determined by the colleges of training involved, all of them are different. *These* bottlenecks are relevant to most specialities but not GP training, which is undersubscribed for training probably due to combination of pay and the location of training sites. Then there are the large number of doctors who despite being good doctors end up failing or otherwise leaving their training and never becoming specialists - they don’t automatically become GPs of course (because GP is a speciality and requires another training pathway), they’re mostly just around doing surgical assisting, CMO and locum jobs. So there aren’t really bottlenecks to GP training apart from a small number of technically difficult requirements (e.g. getting hospital paediatric time and women’s health time accredited, passing exams) that are important for a GP skill set. In the old days all doctors could practice as a GP after X number of years working in hospitals. Those days are long gone. Bringing it back would no doubt boost GP numbers but would you take the hit in GP skill? I wouldn’t. The health outcomes would be a disaster.
I may be out of touch here, but my experience with GP's lately, mostly immigrants, seems to have taken a "hit in GP skill". I was prescribed nose drops, at half the strength they are available OTC. I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said, just wondering if the skill decline would be even noticed?
Overseas GPs who are filling the gaps in demand for GP services due to there not being enough GPs due to…GPs not being paid enough, amongst other reasons… This is exactly what I meant when I said people wouldn’t like the consequences.
It's not a free market to begin with, the supply of doctors is determined by market forces, government policy and standards boards. Since it's not a free market to begin with, people should be able to comment freely on what someone should be paid, hopefully they are actually educated on the topic though first. What doctors are paid entirely depends on demand and supply, governments have a huge part in determining both. When any professional gets protected by the government, they lose part of the ability to say "don't question what I'm worth, it's just the market baby". Also this assumes the market is perfect which it never is fully
Which would be fine except that for GPs there is no public element of their practice for the most part (i.e. no salaried positions). They work as private practitioners and can charge what they like to achieve the business outcomes they are seeking. The government Medicare rebate is to *consumers* to allow less costly access to private GPs. The GP system is *not* directed for the public good by health departments. In my opinion as I’ve stated above, this is not a good thing. However, it is the way the system works. Traditionally, government intervention in private pricing is frowned upon across all industries right? There is an *under supply* of GPs- posts saying that GPs are underpaid are way out of touch. You can’t force med students to choose GP as a specialty (the college decides who to allow into training, as with all specialities, by law). If the community wants more GPs, students need to freely choose it just like any other career. Do we live in a free country or not? And if the students aren’t choosing it, why do you think that is? EDIT - and just to rant a little longer, if you’ll forgive me - suppose you go full dictator and demand that X% of students become GPs. How do you deal with the cognitive dissonance of the community screaming ‘we want free GP!’ and ‘we want good GPs who are motivated and listen to us’ at them same time? If you send people into a job they don’t want to do, what do you think you’ll get? The cost of medical salaries is a *small thing* in the budget. There aren’t many of us, remember? I suggest focussing on structural things that would actually help the community live the lives they want to live.
I am not suggesting that gp salaries are too high or too low. I just don't agree that it is a total free market, everything from licensing, prescription laws and rebates is intervention. The rest of it is a free market though as you said. No not all government intervention is frowned upon, the free market has many issues that can have better outcomes with government intervention, the trick is knowing when an intervention will lead to good or bad outcomes. I don't like the word shortage to describe anything where prices or wages can change freely, but yes if you mean not enough supply of GPS to keep prices the same in real terms then yes GPs has a growing shortage. Deloitte did a report on GP demand and supply in the future and it looked grim. GPs choose other specialities because they pay more. Government subsidies have only just been updated I think 🤔, but before that they have not grown in many years, making GP roles less desirable. So if the government wants prices to level out they need to increase the supply of GPs. Can incentivise it more or force more supply through other means. My personal thoughts on GP wages is somewhere in between what British GPS are paid (which is forced down too much in my opinion by the NHS monopsony, I looked up wages and was shocked) and USA where doctor supply per capita is low outcomes suck and wages are very high. I don't know enough about the sector to make a more precise assesment. I'd read the Deloitte study on doctor supply and demand, although I don't think that gets into the wages, it's more of an outcome of the demand and supply assessment.
Yes, I agree for the most part. What I was trying to (badly) clarify was that in Australia there is a clear division between public and private healthcare, and in the private side of things the doctors can charge what they want, whether that’s orthopaedics, dermatology, ophthalmology, GP, etc. The general public fairly consistently makes the incorrect assumption that GPs are part of the public system, and they absolutely are not. I think we *should* have a public GP system with GPs on salaried contracts, but we do not have one of those. They are private. Therefore, regardless of the degree to which it is a free market, no one has a say on what they charge apart from the GPs themselves. I should say also that I do very much believe that applying free market principles to healthcare is a *bad thing*, but we have the system we have, and it isn’t GPs who are at fault. They’re copping too much blame at the moment for things that are solely the government’s fault and by extension, the voting populace.
"So why are people talking about what GPs ‘should be’ paid? Do you ask this stuff of architects? Lawyers? Engineers? No. You let the market decide, because this is supposed to be AusFinance." I think GPs should be paid $400K. I think the free market should land around there. I don't think it should be mandated. I think Lawyers/Engineers should be paid $160-$180KK. I think the free market should land there. I don't think it should be mandated.
They need to make near the same as other medical specialities or we will continue to not get more GP’s. In my cohort of 180 students I know of only 6 who want to become a G.P and we are in our final year. Granted many more may become one if they cannot get into their speciality of choice, but the fact is that there will be less and less GP’s in the years to come until there is equity among specialty pay.
I think the reality is that local students will choose not to become GPs in preference for other specialities due to worse pay and conditions. The government will then reason that the GP shortage is due to Australian medical students not wanting to be GPs. They'll use this as their rational for bringing in more foreign trained doctors as well as broadening the scope of other health care professionals or creating new jobs (physician assistant) altogether.
I feel like we’re already there and this has been happening for the last decade at least.
I think you mean Consultant Associate Physician. Judging by the way the NHS is going.
I know, wtf is this shit - we're probably not too far behind the UK. I'm just hoping doctors stick together before our profession is watered down.
No, not the same as other specialties where the training is twice as long, more difficult and less flexible hours/less work life ballance
But it's not about how much training is needed. It's supply and demand. If there is a critical shortage of GPs, they should be able to command whatever number they want.
Gp as a first choice is usually done it if lifestyle and they understand that the pay may not be as good as other specialties. But with a gap and building a good space it can pay very well But many GP's are drop outs from other specialties as it's an easier and shorter program than many others.
Also in the medical field every other specialty looks down on GP being the "easy way out", which makes people not choose GP out of peer pressure. That leaves people who value lifestyle and can cut out the noise (the rare good GPs), the ones who were dropkicks from the start (the awful GPs) and the ones burnt by the hospital system (the ok, but jaded GPs). There's also skilled labour migration which can be a mixed bag. Fortunately married to one of the good GPs. Pulls a comfy $200K while working 30hrs and has a loyal base of patients cos she listens to their problems instead of churning them out for billables.
Doesn't really change the supply/demand dynamic. Garbos don't need any training, but get paid well cuz no one else wants to do it.
it does though, as you dont need to get all of the positions filled by people who want it as a first preferance. filling supply with people who may have it as a second or third preferance still creates the same supply as somone that has it as their first choice.
And how's that going for supply now? The point is that there is a shortage of GPs.
There is a diffrence between it doesnt change the supply/demand for GP's (as you claimed) and supply is sufficiant. but you already knew that right.....
Then why is there a shortage of GPs?
Many GPs are not drop outs from other specialities. This is absolutely false.
I don’t like the way he worded it but he’s not wrong. Several GPs have either attempted to get on or come from other training programs not because they aren’t capable to complete the requirements but often due to the speciality being easier on WLB and more congruent with family life.
There's a huge difference between several GPs and most.
The original comment didn’t say most it said many, I’d argue with the current climate most medical students aren’t wanting to go GP. I would love the diverse mix of GP personally if it didn’t pay so poorly, constantly have the public ragging on it and have constant downward Medicare rebate pressure. Most of my cohort feel the same way, but I can see them changing their minds later in the hospital years when the 70 hour weeks burn them out and 40 hour weeks seem like an attractive proposition. From people I’ve talked to on placement and my own GP placements I’ve seen this be a theme for many regs. Maybe not the majority but many.
So why do you class that as dropping out from other specialities? They've made a conscious decision to pursue GP as it best met their requirements for a career. Most GPs voluntarily pursue GP training. Only a small handful are forced into as a consequence of dropping out of something else and having no other reasonable option. My gripe is the notion that GPs are the drop-outs of other specialities and/or the low performers of medical school when in reality it is one of the hardest specialities out there.
I didn’t say that in my original comment I even acknowledged that the original comment worded it horribly(but you would call someone who left training dropping out of training even though like I said it’s a horrible way of putting it). I also explained the reason why I believe that’s so and it sounds like you agree with me. To clarify for anyone else reading GPs are just as competent doctors and the workload often isn’t easier than any other consultant. It’s only the training years which are more flexible.
All? No. Most? Unsure. Many? Yes. Many are drop-outs from other specialties. Even worse, some barely passed residency and didn't even bother with other specialties. There's a handful that have their head screwed on and actively chose GP for the lifestyle and their skill/ interest suitability for role description.
As a current doctor with many GPs in my circles - what you have said is absolutely false and is a common misconception from those who just clearly have no idea of the workings of the health care system or the training decisions that junior doctors make.
Weird then cos my wife's a GP, so although I'm not experiencing it first hand, I've heard the same story from her and her social group, as well as my own friends who practice medicine. Possible we have different anecdotal experiences. Unfortunately we can't just go around asking GPs "did you choose GP because you settled and failed your specialisation?" expecting an honest answer.
I would argue that someone who may have been interested in derm but didn't want to do a PhD but now is a GP who does skin as a special interest is not a drop out from derm. I would imagine that this example is the case for a fair number of current GPs/GP trainees. It doesn't mean they are bad doctors or less smart or unable to get on a "better" program but as I said previously, they have made a conscious decision to pursue GP as it was a better fit for their career/life goals.
Sounds like you're just a little sensitive about the term "drop out" Without any of the negative connotations (I never mentioned they were bad doctors or less smart, although I would definitely prefer to go to a GP who wanted to do GP from the get go as they're likely more motivated), they would formally fit the definition of a "drop out", since they didn't complete their training.
Yeah, the reality is ~70% will become GP, but it doesn’t seem to be a common aspiration and some of the common reasons are painfully clear to see.
Moat "GPs" are glorified script writers in my experience, and definitely do not deserve the same pay as an actual specialist
The skill of GPs varies but I work in health and I have a lot of respect for someone who has to generalise in all specialities and still takes good care of a patient in a 10min appt system.
Idk man some of the other specialties require way more training to get to $500k/year. If GPs get paid that much I think it'll be a significant burden on the health system. Gotta consider how quickly people become GPs too, most of my GP friends specialise slightly before they turn 30 while their colleagues are still grinding exams after exams + nightmarish 70-hour weeks to get into a training program of other specialties. It might be because of the sort of personalities that are attracted to the modern medical education system where the most ambitious and "Type A" of personalities get in, hence why many don't want to settle with being "Just a GP" because it's seen as 'less worthy' of honor than other specialties. Maybe we should allow overseas trained GPs (like those from the UK/NZ) to specialise as GPs without a moratorium requiring them to move practices in a move to protect locally trained GPs — I can see why the RACGP wants to have these anti-competitive laws in place to protect the local grads, but I'm not sure if it's working to help the affordability of the system, seeing that we take in so many overseas trained doctors in the hospitals anyway, many of whom would choose lower salaries for better work-life balance. The other problem is that there is no "Free Market" in healthcare: the average patient won't be able to clearly evaluate the differences between a 'good' GP and a 'bad' GP, so it's hard to rely on the market alone to incentivised more virtuous and skilled GPs over not so good ones.
I think a salaried GP should be able to make 250k plus super + holidays, sick leave and long service leave. Most GPs are sole traders and therefore dont get sick leave, annual leave or long service leave. If you want to incentivise the best students to become doctors you need to pay accordingly.
What super high achiever has $250k as their dream 'i can take whatever for this money' salary? Remember this is to entice people into the field. 250k is not aspirational for anyone, unless it's 9-3 3 days a week with 26 weeks off. Even then that's not great as the capstone of your career with 15+ years spent training.
Wait are you cooked ? 250k is not aspirational ?
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Not for a doctor, not at all.
No, it's not.
>dont get sick leave, annual leave or long service leave. They're free to give this to themselves
Which comes at a cost to the GP, if we take sick leave for two days then it’s two days of lost income. If we take a two week holiday we lose two weeks of income.
My point was that a business analyst might be on 130k plus all the benefits a year as a salaried position but when they contract they get 1000 a day. The reduction in benefits and job security requires significantly higher compensation to the point that a 250k salaried position might be more like 350 - 400k per annum as a contractor.
That's pretty low compared to alternative medical optioms. Surely they'd just pick up a specialty for more?
General Practice *is* a specialty, just gets written off by those who don’t appreciate it
GP is a specialty though…
It's a specialty in being a generist. yes its still a lot of work, but there is a reason the general population doesnt look at them as a specilist.
“pick up a speciality” it’s not like “pick up an extra shift to save for my holiday”… it’s a lifestyle and pivotal career choice that involves a lot of trade off, both in time with family and perhaps a trade off in values :)
And yet here we are with everyone doing specialties. Simply put, I'd just unleash supply /demand forces without restrictions and see where it lands.
How dare you suggest salaries should be set according to the market/supply and demand rather than an arbitrary number! We love arbitrary numbers here thank you very much
Def values. I’ve never come across a specialist that has been ‘nice’ They’re very ‘special’ indeed.
Not what I meant… perhaps the few doctors choosing to be a GP genuinely value serving their local community. I’ve also met some lovely specialists who have done very skill-full work that changed the quality of my life. But I don’t want a specialist who is only there because working as a GP didn’t pay enough for them.
There are definitely some, but they’re few and far between. Now that you mention it: all of the kind, caring specialists I’ve met have worked in oncology or an adjacent specialty.
Isnt GP a specialty?
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Lower than other specialists? You do know that other specialists are in a “top-heavy” field, with too many of them to go around? The fact is, we need more GPs, the OP is asking what we need to do to incentivise more Doctors going into GP.
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Do we actually need more? Maybe rurally? I've gone to clinics and half the GP books are empty/half full. It's really common. Yeah you get the GP who's booked out all the time because they're popular with a certain demographic. The rest? They're half empty. If you don't believe me, go on hot doc and have a look.
Lol, come to WA. Some rural towns have 10 GPs and a waiting list of 3 weeks to see them.
Of course. I included rural areas in my comment.
The GP shortage is a bit like the teachers shortage. It only exists where people don't want to work.
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$300k + with guaranteed annual minimum pay rises tied to inflation. One of the biggest reasons the bulk billing system does not work is that is does not keep up with inflation very well while all the other equipment the doctors need continues to increase. With our aging population we need to incentivise new grads to take on GP work and not specialise. We are seeing the first ripples of the wave that is boomers hitting the most expensive and financially expensive period of their lives healthcare wise. The cost of losing GP's is severe.
If the question is “how much do I think the role is worth?” (as a purely isolated question, i.e., not considering medicare, bulk billing, or the actual nature of employment) - $300k + super, 4 day week, standard holidays/leave etc. That’s a basic GP. If they offer specialities (e.g., antenatal care, IUD fittings, minor skin surgeries) then more based on their skills. It seems about the right rate for a highly specialised and valued service.
It's not really about how much they should be paid. The market is saying a consult is worth on average 100 dollars. Individual GPs which are highly sought after will make more, others less. The socialists of reddit could say... we get to decide what you're worth....Good luck maintaining a burnt out post COVID workforce with that mentality.
Thats $100 out of pocket for pt, then theres the Medicare rebate on top of that. They need to be paid a high living wage...$300k for 'employed' GPs (who dont have business interest in the GP practice), higher again if they own the GP practice and take on that responsibility. Specialists earn considerably more than that especially if they are a surgeon or a sought after specialist.
> Thats $100 out of pocket for pt, then theres the Medicare rebate on top of that. I'm struggling with the maths here. Current consult fee might be $100, with $40 rebate to the patient from Medicare, right?
Yeah. Not even addressing my comment just posting bullshit misinformation.
lets do some maths on that $100 per consult. $100 per consult, 15 minute consults, and a 40 hour work week. ~~That's $4000 per week or $208,000/year.~~ ~~Some doctors will even make 10 minute appointments making that over $300k per year.~~ thats $16,000 per week, or about $640k per year (based on 40 working weeks to account for hollidays, sick leave public hollidays etc) and thats before anything they may or may not get from medicare. ~~The only thing that needs to change if the medicare rates need to increase to be in line with acctual costs.~~ edit: apparently I cant math. but fixing the numbers thats more than a far pay based on comments here, even after a revenue split with the clinc and accounting for costs like insurance etc.
Not sure how you arrived at those figures. @ 4 consults per hour X 8 hr day = 32 consults per day. 32 consults X $100 = $3,200 daily revenue or $16,000 weekly revenue. Assuming a 70% revenue split. GP pockets $11,200 per week.
The actual maths is for this mixed billed consult: Patient pays $100. Medicare pays the patient $40. The patient is out of pocket $60. The practice receives $100. The practice takes around 35% tenancy fee for supply of the room, staff, equipment, and other overheads. The practice earns $35 revenue. The doctor makes $65 revenue. From that, the GP needs to pay their own overheads including AHPRA registration, college registration, medical indemnity insurance, continuing professional education costs, own equipment costs, etc. This includes an approximately 5% profit margin in order to make some actual money to pay for their life too. A GP would commonly work 8 sessions seeing patients a week. A session is effectively half a day. That's a 4 day week of paid work. There is a lot of unpaid work including results review, writing letters for lawyers in workers compensation and divorce or domestic abuse cases, and lots of paper shuffling required by the government. So at 4 patients per hour, 4 hours per session with *completely* mixed billed patients (no bulk billing, which is not realistic), that's $65x4x4x8=$8192 revenue per week before overheads and taxes. $393,216 revenue per year. Assuming $20,000 in tax deductions, that's about $144,212 tax payable. So $393,212-$144,212= $249,000. Now put away 11% for super ($27,390), and the take home income is about _$221,610_, or $4616 a week. That's for a GP who does not bulk bill and consistently does a full set of sessions at 4 patients an hour, so almost all GPs would be a quite bit less than that, especially female GPs. If you did the maths but replaced all consultations with bulk billing, the GP's revenue is $167,731. That's an after tax income, assuming same $20k in deductions, of $108,004. Subtract 11% for super, and the take home is $96,123 or $2002 a week. These are the approximate extremes: $2000/wk or $4600/wk. Now, GPs are registered as specialist doctors with AHPRA once they have achieved fellowship. Compare that income to the non-GP specialists, add the meddling by state and federal governments and then it makes sense why people aren't choosing GP. Yes, it pays a doctor's salary, but less than most other specialities.
>A GP would commonly work 8 sessions seeing patients a week. A session is effectively half a day. That's a 4 day week of paid work. I'm not sure where your getting that from but its very uncommon in my area for a GP not to work 5 days a week seeing paitents, but lets run with that for the sake of numbers. >$393,216 revenue per year. lets be honets thats a hell of a good salary package, even if you take off $100k per year (almost certainly far more then the real cost of these items) in costs for the registations, insurance, continuing education etc, thast still almost $300k per year after those expenses and they would all be tax deductable. >Now put away 11% for super ($27,390), and the take home income is about $221,610, or $4616 a week. I'm not sure why your bothering with this calcualtion since every job has tax and super to come out, its not like its unique to medicine or even GP's. >Compare that income to the non-GP specialists if we are compairing the pay, lets also include the extra years of study they do, diffrent working conditions and costs they have, diffrences in work life balance etc etc etc. pay is one part of the equation, but not the only one, and with all the other factors its acctully not as uncompetetive as you make it sound.
I'm glad you appreciated my effort to explain. In these threads we have people complaining that most GPs don't work 5 days a week. We also have people doing the maths and saying that most do work 5 days. It's not about days, it's about sessions. Many GPs work 8 sessions whether that's over 4 or 5 days. You took the top extreme in revenue (without removing the tax) as a great salary package, which it is. I also explained this is a highly unlikely scenario. Just as unlikely is the bottom end, which you didn't seem to mention. Since a GP is a contractor, they have to subtract their own super from their income, as they are their own employer. So that's highly relevant in terms of their disposable income. A GP does 2-3 years specialty training on top of the 8 years it takes to become a practising doctor. A surgeon might do 5 years on top of the 8 years. Is that 2-3 year training difference worth a comparatively higher salary in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars for their entire career? Is a dermatologist on-call for those urgent rashes? How about the radiologist doing 9-5 in a private practice and seeing 2 or 3 patients a day?
>You took the top extreme as a great salary package its not really the top extreame though, its far closer to the average gp then either end, its the average GP working in a clinc seeing paitents at market rates, and $100 for a standard consult is an average rate these days with many doctors charging more. At the bottom end they would be working for somone else, removing most of the costs and risks from them, so its hardly compariable as we are trying to do here. >Since a GP is a contractor, they have to subtract their own super from their income Considering most salaries regardless of industry are inclusive of super its not limited to self employed people, removing it from the GP's but not compariables is compairing apples to oranges. >Is that 2-3 year training difference worth a comparatively higher salary in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars for their entire career? The extra training and extra costs they have certainly does. not to mention the worse work life balance and working conditions they have to work with. >Is a dermatologist on-call yea of course they can be, they specilise in skin, not rashes. >How about the radiologist doing 9-5 in a private practice and seeing 2 or 3 patients a day? again, higher levels of training and costs, and much of their work is done outside of seeing patients such as doing reports etc.
It’s always fun to do maths but it has no basis in reality. You also continue to miss the point. The cost is 100. It doesn’t matter how much it adds up to.
For all the training they do and how important they are for health in the community definitely $300k+, I don’t want someone earning peanuts, not caring about what they do or doing a shitty job and misdiagnosing my child’s cancer or something like that. In line with that I also think there should be rigorous testing, re-testing and intense regulations to make sure shonky doctors aren’t allowed to practice.
This already happens.
Not with bulk billing. And if they’re bulk billing they’re probs seeing like 6 patients an hour or something.
Yes that is bulk billing. I worked in HR. I've worked in the health sector in HR. I literally see their pay. You know when someone sees the nurse for a vaccine. Yeah that's a medicare bill. You know when you email the front desk to ask for a script repeat. Yep. That's a consult.
I’m a GP. Scripts like that can carry a private fee but there’s no item number for it. It’s not a consult.
That email one is straight up fraud lol.
I think AHPRA would be very interested to hear about these emails that Medicare are being charged for despite there being no consult. I'm sure that there's an appropriate item number and that you're not just admitting to overseeing fraud online (if those repeats are being charged under bulk billing like you imply).
I would rather be an electrician for that money
Median electrician salary is 90k.
Not including cash jobs
Probably reflects how much tax dodging is going on & how many dual cabs are being written off
No body gets out of bed for 90k
Not all sparkies are EBA hero's like you mate. Must be nice
Not everyone likes to be negative and sook like yourself.
What are you talking about. I'm just stating the actual median electrician salary
They should get a fat salary from the government, and work in a government funded practice that pays for all the overheads, insurance and admin support. Health care should not be run for profit.
I think a lot of GPs would be very welcoming to this as long as the salary was comparable. Salaried positions are becoming more and more popular.
I agree with you but you only need to look at the governments track record on indexing Medicare to see what would happen. Same thing is happening in Canada and half the country doesn’t have access to a GP as they’re leaving the industry (and coming here lol) in droves The whole point that this argument is even up for debate on reddit speaks volumes to what will happen if the government continues making out doctors are the baddies here. Half the people here will pay an extra $2 per piece of chicken at KFC but get upset when the same cost pressures are applied to keeping them alive
If we pay people on what they contribute to society, GPs should be paid a lot. More than bankers, tech workers, management consultants. I think if we talk about how much GPs are worth, we really should talk about how much everyone is worth and get that sorted out because the incentives for smart people to become doctors probably aren’t as high as they should be. Same for teachers.
About what they make now. Maybe a bit more. It's a highly skilled job. Picking at what they are paid is diversionary from the fact that the successive governments have eroded medicare.
As much as they can. Just cause they work to benefit the community does not mean they should work for Penny's. The insurance and lack of entitlements what ever it is it should be more. Trades that are Fifo are pushing $100hr plus a shit load of entitlements and allowances so I'd say $200hr+ but
As someone who does their taxes and works with them often, GPs get paid more than that. At a minimum you have about 1000 per day at about a patient every 10 minutes and some admin. This being said there are GPs who are taking the piss seeing 70-80 patients a day. It's high volume work and the admin is ridiculous so the shit ones skimp on note taking and doing proper examinations. Not uncommon to see a GP on 300k to 400k. A lot of GP clinics aren't owned by GPs so you're also finding a profit for a clinic owner who is increasingly a private health or superannuation fund. Specialists earn way more. A surgeon can break 500k without sweating and I've had clients making 1m plus. However, you're a doctor and nothing else at that point. Hobbies? Maybe a round of golf or a walk with the kids every now and then before you go back to study. I can't dictate what another profession should be paid especially with the fees I charge my clients. However if I had to make a recommendation, remove the need to get PHI to avoid the surcharge . The profits they're making could be put into our public system and benefit everyone.
A good GP IS worth Gold. Not one that wastes time. Is well educated knows how to utilise their time in referrals and follow ups. Good bedside manner
At least enough to ease the burden on hospitals and incentivise more people to be GPs over specialists. Huge pipeline issue currently and it's not great for our healthcare.
There are too many shit gps that's the issue. I shouldn't have to see a "professional" 4 times over an issue I already had worked out.
Whatever they are getting now is probably fine, given the amount of education they have to go through and how stressful being a dr is
Half a million for the service they render the hours they work and the years they put in
Just for thr avoidance of doubt, the average GP works lwss than 38hours a week.
Source? I know many GPs, my father is one, and at only 3 face-to-face work days a week in his 60s, he’s still doing >32 hours most weeks not including his ongoing training.
The value they bring in those hours is what they get paid for
If they are working 5 days a week for 7-10 hours then 200k-300k (should depend heavily on experience and expertise) seems like a good balance of incentivising the profession without paying so much that other aspects of the health system can't get adequate funding. Some people are here saying it should always be over 300k but some Doctors I've seen aren't worth half that and paying all doctors so much will only mean the Healthcare system will have to be even more stingy when paying nurses (the Government isn't willing to increase Healthcare spending enough to do both).
Problem with paying that is, any GP or senior unspecialised doctor can go work in emergency as a CMO or a Locum and make 2k or more a day, so what's the incentive in being a community GP at all?
I would say 75k per day a week worked on a 46 week working year. So you work 4 days a week you get 300k etc. I am a non consultant ICU doctor and make more than that. I'm going to change career to become a GP for a change in scenery in a year... I'd hope to paid as much as I get paid now...
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You can choose to work less if you want. As can they - don’t be mad that they’re taking up that option.
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You can easily train more doctors, badly. Doctors are very cheap in third world countries, but if that's the kind of care you're looking for I don't think you'll be in the majority. Even at current training levels the degree of experience that recent graduates receive is far diminished from even 10 years ago - many current registrars are finishing their training and deciding to do more years pursuing fellowships in recognition that they are 'undercooked'.
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Know a guy who knows a guy
There are also many who work at multiple clinics in a week. So while they're only available at clinic A twice a week, they're at clinic B thrice a week. If you go to clinic A, a patient might make assumptions about how much that GP works.
They think booking avaliability on a website encompasses their entire work schedule. I dont even know where to begin with these nonsense comments
My homes taking longer than expected to build. Shall we force all trades and builders to work overtime too?
Medical fraternity drinking the self sacrifice cool-aid shocked that nobody else is impressed when they expect everyone else martyr themselves for the job.
Strong disagree here. Doctors training is far more long and brutal than anything else I've come across, the JMO years particularly so. With that comes poor outcomes, like doctors having high suicide rates, or having to take large amounts of time off due to burnout mid-training. If you want more doctors availability, we just need more doctors. Not more burnout in the doctors we already have.
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GPs are private contractors effectively therefore can work as little or as much as they like
What do you mean ‘depending on specialist training’? GPs are already specialists, they’ve done the specialist GP training pathway.
You don't see the work behind the scenes such as after hours nursing home visits, review of patient results, attendance at educationals. A GP working 4 days in the clinic might be working 5 days in other ways.
My wife is a manager at a medical clinic and she manages the doctors pay. They get roughly $15K a fortnight. There are instances where they get $30k a fortnight!
Which they then have to pay tax and super on. $15k becomes $3000 a week. Not great.
What the supply and demand of their labour market dictates.
140 - 300k 140k for the foreign, lesser educated, lesser trained... it's true and I don't care saying it. 300k for the upper echelon, where patients are prepared to pay a premium for private, out of normal hour visits.
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Yep, and few Australian are willing to do a trade. Everyone want to go to uni. I'm happy for the trades to benefit.
Hot take but I think it should be far less than the the majority of comments saying $250k+. Downvotes to the left. In my opinion doctors in general are grossly overpaid by a huge degree. An anaesthetist shouldn't be paid a million dollars for what they do and neither should any other medical professional even come close. $200k is already so far above the majority of careers that the arguments of "we need to attract talent" are already solved. People seem to have this notion that doctors need to be paid exorbitant amounts of money otherwise patients will start to receive a low standard of care. Every GP I see is already jaded and bad at their job and it's not rare to hear that same story. There is no argument that could be made to justify a half a million dollar salary for a doctor that isn't solved by just reforming the current system of how we train doctors and operate hospitals/medical centres with the exception potentially of rural medicine.
Lol, how much do you think anaesthetists should be paid? If you want, next time you have something done in private ask them to rustle up a registrar to look after you instead.
Bloke who works from home and then just plays video games all day complains doctors are earning too much. Lol.
Kek, peak reddit
Peak Reddit is looking through my profile to find something super outdated to use as a personal attack instead of actually responding to my points. Yes I worked from home a lot mostly during covid years and spent some part of my day playing video games. This does not mean a surgeon should be pulling in $900k a year.
Yep, your post from 1 month ago sure is outdated.
Oh you're talking about my post about setting up a separate WFH setup? LOL I literally said I don't focus for 8 hours straight and you take that to mean video games all day. Holy shit I didn't think you were reaching that hard. Creeping through someone's post history is already sad enough but yikes man. You couldn't even respond to any of my points even after being called out for it, find something better to do with your time if the best you've got is to stalk through someone's profile. I was curious why you would go through people's profiles so I checked yours and not only have you obviously done the same to other commenters, you're also clearly from the industry and hence incredibly biased to keep the good money coming. Pathetic.
Completely agree. There are some very good doctors out there, but they are hugely outnumbered by arrogant, incompetent, egotists in it for a pay check. The current conditions people work in within the health care sector are rough, and need to be fixed. All the doctors pulling insane incomes could surely be reallocated to improve things for everyone, staff and patients.
>In my opinion doctors in general are grossly overpaid by a huge degree. An anaesthetist shouldn't be paid a million dollars for what they do and neither should any other medical professional even come close. I agree, but I think the taxation system is the right avenue to be addressing this, not intervening into the salaries of different professions on an ad hoc basis.
To help others here GPs are on about 350k now at GPs that have a small fee of about $15. Source. Worked for HR in a health service where we hired GPs.
To convert this to a salaried amount you would need to take out super, annual leave, sick leave, mandatory professional development time and the fact you have no long service leave entitlements. Also want to add on there's all these additional costs of being a doctor. Medical registration 1k a year. Fees to be recognised by a training college ~1500 a year. Medical indemnity insurance 10k a year. Professional development course several thousand a year minimum.
This is the salaried amount. 11% super is on top of this. Annual leave is on top of this. Nurses who are paid 70k a year also have the same professional development requirements. As do many professions. They have long service leave requirements. The example I provided was a GP who is an employee and has all those things Medical registration... yes nurses pay for this to. So do teachers and psa's. Medical indemnity. I've actually filed the invoices it's about $1500 and many professions need indemnity. Lawn mower companies need it ffs. Professional development through a provider is about $200 per course and you need about 6 every year. Again other professions need this and have much lower pay. With how much you were adding that is part of other jobs why didn't you add the first aid requirement and the working with children check for good measure.
Ahpra for nurses and doctors is grossly different ($180 vs $1000). CPD home is a minimum of $800- nurses do not pay for CPD management. You can meet your CPD requirements without having to pay for additional courses but yes sometimes they accrue a cost The indemnity you are referencing is what your company pays to have the doctor there- the doctor has to have their own personal indemnity insurance as well (minimum $2000 for a non-proceduralist- I.e specialty that doens’t physically touch people) Mandatory college fees run at a minimum of $2000 per year Doctors working in any speciality where a nurse would be expected to have a first aid certificate, the doctor needs to have an advanced life support qualification (First aid =$49 vs ALS =495) HECS debt for a nurse = approx $12000 (recently reduced by government initiatives) HECS Debt for a doctor = $37000 A YEAR - so minimum $180000 ( recently increased by government initiatives In NSW, with the recent round of pay rises, a PGY1 registered nurse earns about $2k more per year than a PGY1 doctor Having graduated to both professions, I can tell you which one was harder on the hip pocket. Your comparison is bogus
Nurses have to pay for courses for their CPD. No one is providing it for free Other specialities have to pay their own indemnity. A sole trader doing lawn work does. No the doctor doesn't need advanced life support at all. First aid HLTAID004 is all that is needed. Hecs debt reduces income at a percentile scale. Same as every industry. I work in HR. I literally file the invoices. Your argument is stupidly flawed. Like a plumber has higher overheads ffs
Most GPs are not employees.
You are right. Those in private practice get paid more
Fully private maybe. Mixed and bulk billing unlikely.
I know where I work. The gap is $15
Lawyers have the same expectations with much lower pay, no ability to go part time
With absolutely no research into it or critical thinking applied, just as an average Joe trying to imagine what sounds reasonable and fair, 180k after expenses and tax.
Whatever the market decides We however should supply the market with more doctors. Standards to get into an MD or MBBS is insanely high, we could double intake without dropping our standards much, and that would mean GP programs which are struggling to attract med students will have more students trying to apply. Medicine is the only industry where an oversupply of workers is apparently bad. I don't follow that crap, I think it's harped up by the AMA to uphold their insane salaries.
Not more than 200k for very high skilled specialists. Average should be around 150k. They are robbing us now. Not providing bulk billing and pocketing 400k+
I reckon there should be an option to see an AI GP. Some of them just use Google anyway or are simply there to provide a repeat script.
People in this sub are absolutely cooked, 300k a year ? On part time roflmao ... Right mate. AI is coming and it has access to all the combined knowledge that exist in the medical field so yeah go ahead and try to get your 300k in the next 5 years.
I think there should be regular GPs on 130k and highly accomplished GPs on 200k (at 38 hours per week) The reason is that a large portion of GPs are professional Googlers or just inexperienced and they have no reason to strive to do better.
I would like to pay them, along side every other doctor in this country, good working conditions and a non toxic professional culture. In lieu of this, then 300k plus.
Meanwhile our nurses, radiologists, paramedics, midwives and allied health professionals who keep our healthcare in check earn a measly 100k and do the dirty work for GPs while our GPs are raking up $300k and drive to their workplaces in nice flashy cars. I believe that other health care professionals need better pay and keep GPs pay the same or slightly less to reduce the pay gap
100k out of uni, 10k per ‘specialty’. 10k per year of service, capped at 150k + specialty bonus. Assuming bulk billing. Anyone doing more than 4 years uni deserves more than average pay in their profession - even as a rookie.
We have a GP shortage as is, you want no GPs at all?
What are you paid?
The fact is if you pay them that much no one's going to become a GP. First off, who's going to work their ass off through high school or uni, to go through 4-6 years MBBS/MD + 1 year internship + 1+ years residency + 4-6 years training for $150k? And then who's going to do any of that when a base pay public consultant gets paid $300-400k (and much much more in the private sector)
What do you think GO’s get paid in most suburban, bulk-billing practices? It’s not a lot - not enough. I’d happily have them paid 250k, but I know it’s not economically viable, I think 150k is solid for a career GP, who just wants to help people, but without the pressure of a hositpal’s politics and pressures.
Family GP's, $120-$150k. Family GP's are next to useless at providing decent advise. All they know how to do is prescribe antibiotics, give us sick notes for work and experts on sitting on their arse browsing their phones between patients because writing a stick note/prescribing antibiotics takes 1-2 minutes and they need to "see" each patient for 10 minutes. Specialists should be the ones making $150-$250k, because they actually know something. Surgeons should be making $250k-$400k, because they take the largest risk and require absolute expertise.
You've clearly had the privilege of good health.
You’re actually proposing a pay cut for specialists and surgeons with your conception of salary. Specialists already make 250k minimum in the hospital if full time, that’s the absolute base for the lowest ranked specialist, it only goes up over time. Surgeons routinely clear 400-500k+ plus. Routinely.
Sorry friend, surgeons and anaesthetists are making farrrrrr more than that lol.
Sounds really easy .. you should become a GP ..
Getting there is hard. Being a GP is easy. I've also worked as a receptionist at a family docs, so I know how easy it is. Majority of the patients are there for the flu or just want a sick note, and any cases which are remotely more difficult, you get a referral to a specialist slip.
Less than they make now, because we need to train more of them and basic economics dictates that will reduce price. There is no shortage of people that want to be doctors, just artificial constraints on supply (training) influenced by the AMA. I think $100k start, ratcheting up to $200k is more than enough money for people to be motivated into the profession for the right reasons. If you’re as money hungry as some doctors I’ve encountered, there are plenty of other industries that pay well.
200k is not enough for doctors. These are very smart people. They could make more than that in other industries. They also give up many years of their lives to be in school with almost no money.
“They also give up many years of their lives to be in school with almost no money” *cries in Academic*
Unfortunately just because you are ‘smart’ does not at all show that you have good worth ethic and follow up. Some doctors are a waste of time and have no idea about treatment, Follow up and even basic bedside manner
I'm really interested in hearing your understanding of how GPs and other specialists are trained and how that fits into your understanding of how supply (training) can be expanded?
Start putting more kids through medicine. Simple.
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No I don’t. We need to put more kids through medicine, UNSW is currently offering places to 6% of applicants. That will fill the vacant GP training programs.
No more than 200K base for an experienced GP. AI can pretty much do the job better than a Doctor. An issue with AI is that treatments can be sponsored by big-pharma. Diagnoses can be biased by metrics too. Edit: Seems like too many are raising their points of view to the wrong person. It will happen and it is happening. That is all.
Would love to see AI handle a mental health consult.
every shiny new tech we think it’s the solution. AI is not ready unless your case is simple or stereotypical. Then the expectations on productivity increases and price decreases. They’ll work just as hard to see twice the patients.
~$90k. Same as a regular office worker without weekends or overtime.
4 years undergrad, 4 years postgrad + residency + internship for a $90k salary?! Hahahahahah
You can make 180k during a residency
That's what many recent PhDs grads get. Granted, MD starting salaries aren't super impressive, but it does go up fast.
you’re funny.
Yeah. Treating someone’s STI sores and detecting your grandmothers cancer is definitely the same as an office worker wasting time on reddit…
That's what a 1st year intern makes. What do you think a 1st year intern should make in this system of yours?
$30k ought to do
Good luck getting any good applicants. Smart people cost money, end of story.