Featured image: Shadow Health Minister Georgie Crozier, nurse Viktoria Bastow, patient Maureen Sanders, Member for Euroa Annabelle Cleeland and Broadford Medical Clinic owner Dr Geetha Venkatram met on Thursday to discuss the outcomes of the State Government’s tax which is charging medical practices more payroll tax.
A tax implemented by the State Government is placing financial burdens on medical clinics, with some doctors saying they are struggling to keep their doors open.
The State Revenue Office, SRO, is issuing notices to medical practices classifying tenanted doctors, dentists, physiotherapists and other allied health practitioners as employees rather than contractors for the purpose of payroll tax.
Medical practices are receiving payroll tax bills backdated by up to five years resulting in tax bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The new tax is likely to cause higher out-of-pocket costs for patients and fewer bulk billing clinics, which could increase demand on Victoria’s hospital and emergency health systems.
Broadford Medical Clinic owner Dr Geetha Venkatram said she was struggling to keep the clinic open and bulk billed prior to the tax.
“I’m the only doctor in this area who sees veterans free of cost. This clinic doesn’t charge anybody – we’re 100 per cent bulk billing,” she said.
“If you’re going to change things and make it difficult for us, we might have to one day close and I don’t want to see that day.
“This clinic cannot sustain any more … it’s extremely difficult to run a place with bulk billing.
“People are asking me to charge but I won’t consider charging especially veterans, senior citizens, healthcare holders – I will never do that.
“Even the last month I said to my accountant don’t pay me, pay the staff members first. You tell me how you can run a practice like that.”
Maureen Sanders, 82, a patient at Broadford Medical Clinic for more than 20 years, said the clinic provided a better quality of care than hospitals due to patient-doctor relationships.
“I love coming here. It fills all my needs and I don’t feel like I’m a number, which I have sometimes felt at different doctors,” she said.
“Already some days I’ve rang up and been told the clinic isn’t open because they’ve got no doctors. This is going to be the future if nothing gets done.”
Ms Sanders said accessibility to healthcare for the elderly would be impacted if regional clinics were forced to close.
“I’m lucky I can still drive or my daughter-in-law brings me down but what about people who don’t have that? They might walk here if they’re in town but how the hell are they going to go somewhere else?” she said.
Kilmore Medical Centre practice manager Ram Lakshmipathy said the the payroll tax would have negative financial implications.
“We’re struggling to keep our head above water and the only hand this government has given us is one that will drown us,” he said.
Member for Euroa Annabella Cleeland said the taxes were pushing regional areas to ‘breaking point’.
“These new taxes are placing an unnecessary and unfair burden onto our already stretched local GP clinics,” she said.
“Victoria is broke and they have decided to target GPs in a desperate cash grab.
“The consequences of this new health tax will ricochet across the state and our local communities are the ones that will be wounded.”
Shadow Minister for Health Georgie Crozier, who visited the Mitchell Shire last week to speak to doctors, said the payroll tax would have ‘massive impacts’ including clinic closures.
“What we’ve got here in Victoria is a health system at breaking point and the government imposing this retrospective payroll tax on medical clinics is just going to break the health system. In rural communities, like Broadford, where will these patients go? What happens when this clinic closes?” she said.
“This is a bad tax and we’re calling on the government to reverse this decision so that the health system can be sustained because this is unsustainable if they apply this payroll tax.
“Costs will go up for patients, bulk billing will go, clinics will close, and patients will be forced into our already busy emergency departments.”
But a State Government spokesperson denied changes to the tax assessments.
“There has been no change to the way payroll tax is assessed or enforced in any sector – including payments made by medical centres to GPs,” they said.
“We will continue to work constructively with GPs, and encourage any clinic with an issue about an assessment to talk to the State Revenue Office.”
However, Ms Crozier called on Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas to listen to peak medical bodies rather than ‘claiming the tax is simply misinformation’.
“If she is serious, she will release all directions to the SRO from the Labor Government, as well as all advice and audit results provided by the SRO to government, so Victorians can see exactly how Labor’s Health Tax is calculated.”
