Let me tell you about a little problem I've been having

I appear to have put something out! Whether it be my back, my hips, or something else, I'm not sure. For the last 3 months or so, whenever I walk I have a lovely clicking sound. Hubby thought I was nuts for the first 2 months. And then when it was dead silent one night, I walked to the kitchen to get a drink, and he heard it too. He has isolated it to be somewhere on the left side of my hip.

I was managing with it, but the sound drove me nuts, especially as I was getting up often during the night to see to Buster and/or Daisy (they've been rather unsettled lately!). It was so quiet in the house, and I'd be walking to their rooms and that 'click' was all I could hear. It didn't seem to be getting any worse, so I hadn't gotten it checked out. However, over the last couple of weeks, it's getting worse. The click is the same, but now by the end of the day I'm in pain and need some panadol and a heat pack to help relieve the pain. By lunch time yesterday - after an hours walk in the morning and pushing a heavy trolley around the shops - I was hurting. Then I had a piled basket of ironing to do. That didn't help. And then I had to cook dinner. Lets just say that after my meeting last night, from 8pm I was confined to the couch, with my legs elevated, heat pack and blanket on, and panadol taken to take the edge off the pain.

Well, I've been putting it off getting checked. So I went to make an appointment with my GP. They've been bulk billing since I've been going for the last 3 years. Well - now they've decided to charge! I rang another 5 surgeries to find they are too, now.

$100 bill from GP visit

GETTING sick could now cost you almost $100 in out-of-pocket expenses, as doctors and pathology laboratories abandon bulk-billing and Medicare rebates fail to keep pace with fees.

One of the nation's biggest general practice providers, Primary Health Care, has stopped bulk-billing in 16 of its medical clinics and is also introducing patient charges for blood and urine testing.

Primary Health Care managing director Ed Bateman said the new charges were being introduced because government Medicare funding no longer met the full cost of providing these patient services.

Some general practitioners charge $66 for a visit and the Medicare rebate covers just $34 of this amount.

Pathology labs now charge patients up to $62 for a urine test and Medicare rebates cover just half of this amount.

In addition, families will have to pay up to $33.30 out of their own pocket when they get a prescription filled from January 1 after the patient charge for subsidised drugs rose 40c per script. Pensioners and welfare recipients pay $5.40 for prescriptions.

When you add together all the patient charges not covered by Medicare they can total almost $100.

Doctors have complained for years that the $34.30 Medicare rebate for a standard doctor's visit was inadequate and compared poorly with the $70 to $90 charged by other health professionals, such as dentists and physiotherapists.

Primary Health Care owns 87 GP clinics around the country and a further 87 pathology laboratories.

Dr Bateman told his company's annual general meeting in December: "The current bulk-billing rebates received for normal GP consultations are approximately half the average privately billed fee."

He said government funding cuts to pathology in last year's May budget could cost his company $45 million. "

Our pathology laboratories will seek to claw back a significant proportion of these costs by increasing patient charges," he said.

The Hawke Labor government, which introduced Medicare, promised the scheme would cover 85 per cent of the cost of seeing a doctor. But that has fallen as governments have failed to raise Medicare rebates in line with inflation.

The Australian Medical Association recommended that GPs charge patients $64 for a standard consultation from November last year.

The $34.30 Medicare rebate covers just 53 per cent of this.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon said it was unsustainable for taxpayers to fund the large corporate profits of pathology companies when so many people were struggling because of the global financial crisis.

Don't get me wrong, I believe the doctors are worth more money (though they're usually just 5 minute visits anyway), but honestly. This is going to cost a fortune over the year, when all I might want is a simple check-up or contraceptive prescription. It means saving up my 'woes' to consolidate my visits.

So if I'm going to be out of pocket around $30 a visit, does it mean that they'll suddenly run on time with their appointments? I doubt it! It also wouldn't bother me as much paying, if I knew at least the doctor I was seeing was 'better' and less like cattle getting drenched (or some better analogy). They're all like there here - you're herded in, and herded out as fast as possible.

I've been seeing the same doctor for 3 years - and she didn't even realise I'd lost almost 40kg. She didn't remember from a previous visit that I was concerned about depression. No reminders about pap smear (I know that's my responsibility, but my old GP would at least remember to ask everytime I had a new prescription written for the Pill!).

I expressed concerns for my freckles, and got barely a cursery glance -despite me being a prime candidate for melanoma being fair skinned and a little bit of a red-head. I figure I'm going to cost the health service LESS in the future if I get certain things checked out earlier than later - eg my hips could be something serious, skin cancer, etc. Now I just feel like I'm paying to get second rate service.

After a lot of ringing around, I finally found a medical centre that WILL bulk bill. I have to travel for 40 minutes, no appointments (ie long wait with 3 little kids), and no continuity of care.

This has really upset me over the last couple of days, in particular that I'm in so much pain and yet I have to go to such lengths just to get a simple check-up and no doubt a referral for more tests or scans.