Following the precedents set in Victoria and NSW it is now appears  that the Queensland State Revenue office has  commenced levying retrospective payroll taxes on GP Practices and that medicare and professional fees paid to independent  GPs are considered to be be payments to “employees” for the purpose of determining payroll tax liability.

In a press release issued on 11 November 2022 the President of the Queensland Division of the AMA Dr Maria Boulton warned that this action will end bulk billing in Queensland

“This is a tax on patients. General practices cannot bear these costs and will have no option but to pass them on to patients or close their doors.”

Dr Boulton said the crippling patient tax will mean the end of bulk billing in Queensland.

“The state government is effectively extinguishing any bulk billing in general practice. It is simply not viable for practices to continue bulk billing while having to pay unexpected bills of millions of dollars in some cases,” she said.

“Bulk billing will disappear completely and patients will go to emergency departments instead, overwhelming hospitals.

“This is an extremely short-sighted cash grab that will only exacerbate the problems in our GP workforce. For every dollar spent on general practice, there is a tenfold return to the healthcare system in terms of savings”.

AMA Queensland estimate that this will impact over 80% of QLD General Practices. The Qld AMA media release is here.

The impact of this policy will be to threaten the viability of many Practices, forcing further transition towards Private billing by Practices and possibly a review of service charges to be paid by independent GPs to Practices.

The impact will be to make access to high quality primary health care less affordable for patients,  and to further reduce the attractiveness of GP as a medical specialty in Queensland.

Logic suggests that this reduced access will result in poorer health outcomes for Queenslanders and a greater cost burden for Queensland as chronic diseases are treated acutely in the hospital system, instead of being treated in a timely and cost effective manner by GP.

It is hard to disagree with the view that this is a short sighted policy.