Federal Health Minister Mark Butler makes no apologies for disrupting the Hunter's GP market as part of a push to drive up Medicare bulk-billing rates.
The government will spend $25.3 million over three years to establish six fully bulk-billing GP clinics across the Hunter and Central Coast, which have some of the lowest bulk-billing rates in the country.
Medicare data shows the Hunter's current bulk-billing rate is 15 per cent below the national average, 20 per cent below the state average and 30 per cent below western Sydney.
Mr Butler said there was no rationale to explain the Hunter's low rates other than GP culture.
"It is not more expensive to run a general practice in this region than it is in Sydney. Arguably, it's cheaper," Mr Butler said during a visit to the Charlestown urgent care clinic on Tuesday.
"There is simply a cultural issue in general practice in this region, and we're determined to change that culture.
"I've warned this general practice community quite openly for the last few years. If we didn't see an increase in bulk billing that means people in this community enjoy the benefits of our bulk billing investments like other members of the Australian community are, then we would intervene in this market."
Details of the new clinic locations have not been announced, however, Mr Butler said they would be determined by an arm's-length competitive process that the Hunter primary health network will conduct.
Parts of the Hunter with lower than average bulk billing rates will be targeted.
"In the Hunter, that's particularly probably the lower part of the Hunter Valley, Newcastle, the areas around Lake Macquarie, Central Coast," he said.
"The primary health network will examine both bulk-billing rates very carefully and target this investment to get the biggest bang for buck for those local communities."
Relaxing restrictions on overseas-trained doctors combined with an increase in locally-trained GPs are among the ways the government plans to staff the new clinics.
"We've made it easier for practice owners to recruit, particularly doctors from the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand, countries where we have very high confidence in their training systems," he said.
"It's a great place to live, but it's also a great place to practise medicine. The ability of this region to recruit those overseas-trained doctors as well as recruiting Australian trained doctors will mean I'm very confident these new practices will be able to recruit the doctors we need."
Hopes were high that last week's federal budget would contain $5 million towards developing a master plan for the John Hunter Health and Innovation Precinct.
Despite missing out, Mr Butler said he would continue to engage with the project's stakeholders.
"We receive a huge number of pre-budget submissions from the health sector, and as much as I love to fund every single one of them, there's simply not the capacity, at the best of times, let alone frankly, a very challenging economic task that we face right now," he said.
"This is a great health region, and I'm more than willing to continue to engage with those providers about that idea."
