Private specialists face unique challenges, including declining private health insurance membership, poor indexation of the MBS, and rising costs associated with running a medical practice. AMA (NSW) is at the forefront of negotiating with the State and Federal Government to ensure we look after private specialists and your individual practice needs.
Looking after private specialists
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The AMA has supported Prostheses List Reform, including the introduction of reference pricing for items on the List, using the prices paid by Australian public hospitals as a guide, and allowing for particular features of the nation’s private sector, including the extra support offered by medical device companies. However, we believe that this option still requires extensive work in consultation with the whole industry to achieve the best possible outcomes for patients and the sector.
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The AMA has also called for changes to the listing process to improve the evidence supporting prostheses use, which will further improve outcomes for patients.
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The AMA lodged several submissions with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), opposing the Authorisation sought by Honeysuckle Health and nib to form a buying group to represent private health funds in negotiations with providers and expand its clinical partners program.
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The AMA assisted in the development of a new framework to deal with identification and management of vexatious notifications.
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The AMA has been at the forefront of calling for changes mandatory reporting requirements to ensure doctors are not discouraged from seeking medical treatment.
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The AMA is encouraging the Government to take immediate action on private health insurance reform and introduce a regulator to instill confidence into the system.
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Advocacy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, including elective surgery issues, contracts, medical indemnity, PPE, hospital access issues, priority vaccination for healthcare workers and their staff members and more.
Looking after you
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We offer Employment Health Checks that are exclusive to AMA (NSW) members at no extra cost. The Health Check is a one-on-one consultation with an experienced advisor from our Workplace Relations Team, who will work with you on employment issues specific to your practice.
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AMA (NSW) provides members with a range of template employment contracts for private practice staff.
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Resources to help members in their capacity as employers or managers of practice staff, including Pre-Employment documents, Modern Award information, National Employment Standards, Employee leave, Fair Work information, Workplace Health & Safety, Tax & Super information, and Post Employment documents.
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We assist to upskill and empower members by offering training and education on relevant topics, including webinars and events on owning your own private practice, managing privacy, different types of employment contracts and more.
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Workers Compensation rates for Specialists.
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We provide medico-legal support on a range of issues including, medical records, privacy issues, subpoenas and attending court, contact from agencies such as AHPRA, the Medical Council of NSW, Health Care Complaints Commission, Medicare Complaints and Advertising.
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We care about doctors’ health and wellbeing and we know you do too. That’s why we’ve established a Doctors for Colleagues registry which includes a list of general practitioners who are interested in taking on other doctors as patients.