Australian health care system, please read and contribute a brief story if you can...

[warren pease]

I'm looking for DUers who live in Australia and who can describe your experiences in getting simple tests -- in this case, some blood work -- under your national health care system.

I want to contrast your stories with this one I got yesterday from someone who had read an article I did highly critical of US for-profit medicine and who sent it along to me in hopes I might be able to use it in a future article. This is excerpted from his/her note:


==================================================================
I am in the throes of dealing with three medical
problems. In order to get three simple blood tests performed this
week, I had to do the following yesterday:

1. Phone call to primary insurer to ensure coverage
2. Phone call to secondary out-of-state contractor to find approved lab
3. Phone call to doc's office to get procedure code--not known
4. Phone call to first (erroneously chosen) lab to get procedure codes
5. Phone call to secondary insurer to give procedure codes. Lab is
not approved even though the hospital it is attached to is approved
6. Phone call to approved labs to find out whether I need new
form--no answer at either facility
7. Series of six runaround voice mail messages at lab 1--after
reaching correct person, I get cut off
8. Series of four runaround voice messages at lab 2--asked to be
called back and never am
9. Direct call to lab 2 to confirm procedure code--must have new form
from doc
10. Phone call to doc to get new forms--two voice mail messages
11. Phone call to lab 1--no new form required

All of this required two hours of my time. For one blood test. In all
I was transferred or left a voice message or had to listen to menu
options a total of 22 times. For one blood test.

And this is after the secondary insurer misinformed me that all the
facilities of an approved hospital are within the network. They are
not. Just because a lab is contained within a hospital, employs
hospital staff, and bills through the hospital does not mean that it
is part of that hospital.
====================================================================


Now, I just can't believe this kind of crap goes on in any sane, civilized country. To support that hypothesis, I'm trying to get as many brief (one paragraph is all that's necessary) stories describing how you'd go about getting and paying for blood work in Australia.

This could be a great article with enough input to constitute a reasonable sample of international systems and how they deal with a simple blood test. I'd like to include your story in my upcoming compare/contrast article.

But I can't possibly do it without a great deal of help. So please try to take a couple of minutes and send me just a quick overview of what's involved, now much bureaucracy you have to put up with, and how much would it cost.

Also, if you haven't had any personal experiences with this issue, please distribute this note far and wide among your friends and contacts.

Finally, this kind of piece can be a small but significant blow against the mentality that created and supports the current US medical madness. It would be my great pleasure and privilege to personally, though figuratively, flip one of the thousands of switches that blow the official story straight to hell.

You can post responses here, send them to me via DU's PM system, or mail them to my account at [e-mail] /

Also, please let me know if I can use your name, screen name, or just identify you as an Australian.


Thanks a lot for reading through this, and many thanks in advance for any contributions you can make to this project. Christ knows, we need all the help we can get here in the land of the medically fucked.


Best,

wp

[anakie]

1. I need a blood test next week

I will go to my GP, present my medicare card at reception, a quick chat to the doc then out the back and have blood drawn. A couple of days afterwards I will return to my dr and the results will be available. Again I wont have to pay upon presentation of my medicare card.

Other doctors order blood tests then the patient will go to a pathology clinic to have the blood drawn. Again, upon presentation of a medicare card this is free.

There are lots of problems with the health care system in Australia but at least basic health care is provided to all free. By free I mean that we pay a medicare levy at tax return time of 1.5% of our pre tax earnings.

peace

[Matilda]

2. As Anakie said.

If you're insured, you will pay when the blood test is done, then put in a claim with your insurance
company. No need to clear it in advance though.

It's John Howard's dream to have American-style health care in Australia - private medicine has
boomed on his watch, but he doesn't dare dismantle Medicare and the public hospital system completely. They're sacred.

Edit to Add: What kind of twisted bureacratic mind thought up your system?

[Djinn]

3. Felt really tired a month ago

thought I was just overworked but mentioned it to the Doc when I went to get a repeat prescription (Doc appt free and prescription subsidised by PBS) he thought what I described was more than general tiredness so sent me to the path clinic across the road - cost me nothing after the Medicare rebate and a few days later I found out I had glandular fever.

Had I not been a sad act who's addicted to work I could have used my sick leave and be paid for the time I took off work.

Never ceases to amaze me that Americans put up with your criminal health "care" (and industrial relations) system.

[foreigncorrespondent]

4. Pretty much he same...

...for all us Aussies here I reckon. We just go to our local doctor, show our medicare card at reception go in, the doctor takes the blood and sends it off. We get the results back in a few days. If your doctor bulk bills, you won't pay, if not, then you pay for the consultation usually, but you can claim it back in medicare.

On edit, typo

[oscarmitre]

5. My experience is the same as those already listed.

I see my GP (I have to pay a small amount because the practice doesn't "bulk-bill", that is, it charges above the Medicare rate). He gives me an authorisation for a blood test. I go and get the blood test. I go back to the GP we discuss the results. That's it.

[canetoad]

6. Enough evidence?

I don't need to detail my experiences as they are covered nicely by the posters above.

You are being fed whole cloth mate. Any country that professes to be advanced with a good administrative culture could put in place what you confusingly like to call a 'single payer' system.

Unfortunately the good people of the usa have been baffled by bullshit, your own dubious mythology and the fact that no other country in the world could possibly do anything better than you. Well we can, and it works and it makes you look backward and silly. Now what are you going to do about it?

[ducati588]

7. Canadian Experience

In Canada the doctor completes a card (5X8) for all of the required blood tests. You take this card to a blood/Xray clinic which is usually in the same facility, and the clinic staff draw blood as required. The results are sent to the doctor within a few days or quicker if necessary.

Virtually no wait in the clinic, and the tests are covered under the government plan. The tests are free.

[Esra Star]

8. Ducati, 7 posts, and you post on the Oz board. Welcome.

The more I learn about Canada, the more it sounds like
Australia, only more ice.
Sorry about your noisy neighbours.