Sydney, Australia – 20th September, 2017: A special investigation by The Daily Telegraph has found Sydney-based private equity firm Crescent Capital Partners is legally making millions solely from Medicare funds. The Telegraph can also reveal:
■ Two people running the peak body that supervises and advises on the standards for the industry, Dr Spiro Doukakis and Dr Umberto Russo, have personal investments in the sector’s biggest service provider, National Home Doctor Service.
■ Unpublished Medicare data shows 70 per cent of the 1.86 million after-hours house calls in 2015-16 were made by non-vocationally registered GPs and GP trainees.
■ The program is riddled with visits from trainee doctors that have allegedly led to misdiagnosis, complications and poor quality of care.
■ A media ambassador for National Home Doctor Service, Dr Keith Kolodzej, is an American who came to Australia after having his medical licence revoked in the US for alcohol and cocaine use. Dr Kolodzej did not complete his training in the US, with his residency terminated. He is qualified to practise in Australia. Dr Kolodzej now owns a tattoo removal parlour in Darlinghurst and works for the National Home Doctor Service five nights a week.
He is just one of hundreds of doctors employed by the industry to provide urgent patient care after-hours.
There have been serious breaches in healthcare, with The Daily Telegraph revealing 230 public complaints about the services with many patients around Australia taking to public forums to voice their disappointment. And upset GPs across the country are also raising issues about having to clean up the mess left by the untrained after-hours doctors the following morning.
The federal health minister has instructed his department to investigate.
Ahead of addressing the media, Greg Hunt’s office said the Medicare integrity division of the Department of Health will begin a full investigation immediately.
The Royal Australian College of GPs president Dr Bastian Seidel said many of the visits were not urgent and should attract a fee of $74 instead of $130.
“Our main concern is there is a loophole in the system that allows doctors who are unqualified showing up to do home visits and charging Medicare $130 and they’re in and out in under five minutes,” Dr Seidel said. “Those doctors don’t have the qualifications to do a proper medical assessment. This industry is trying to make a mint by creating this urgent call-out market.”
Private equity firm Crescent Capital Partners is a major shareholder in National Home Doctor Service, which was registered in October 2013.
In June the Medicare Benefits Schedule Review Taskforce determined patients were getting “unnecessary and inappropriate care”. Its report noted the increase in after-hours urgent GP visits was not driven by an increasing clinical need but “has coincided with the entry of new businesses into the market with models that promote these services to consumers, emphasizing convenience and no out-of-pocket costs”.
And it found the at-home services were often provided by “less qualified clinicians”.
The report, along with an investigation by the Medicare compliance body Professional Services Review, has found a major problem with the services was the exploitation of the “urgent” Medicare Benefits Schedule item for “non-urgent” cases, such as issuing prescriptions, a medical certificate or treating an uncomplicated rash.
After-hours services have been part of the Medicare Benefits Schedule since 1984. But the industry has exploded recently, increasing by 150 per cent in five years, from 730,000 urgent after-hours visits in 2010-11 to 1.87 million in 2015-16. But there has been no significant decline in hospital visits.
“The Minister is deeply concerned about reports of poor quality of care and the claiming of services which aren’t urgent,” a spokesman for Health Minister Greg Hunt said. “Providing any health service requires an absolute duty of care, even more so for one funded by the taxpayer.”
Dr Doukakis said there had not been any governance issues that would require him to disclose his shareholding in National Home Doctor Service. “There have been no issues of governance whatsoever requiring such disclosure,” he said.
SERVICING A LONG LIST OF COMPLAINTS
A litany of complaints is plaguing the reputations of at-home GP services online, with hundreds of people rating them “terrible” and stories ranging from misdiagnosis to being left in the lurch in the middle of night.
Hundreds of people have taken to review sites and social media to voice horror stories.
The Daily Telegraph has also spoken to patients across the country who revealed some doctors have even failed to take basic measures such as checking a temperature.
One woman who posted a review about a major provider in July said the service “failed” to diagnose her heart attack.
The woman claimed the doctor told her she “must have something bacterial” because her arm ache symptoms were only occurring in one arm.
A mother this month said she had been told she was “fine to go to work” when she had influenza A and pneumonia.
A 70-year-old woman said a home service GP told her she had a UTI and was “confused”. She said she ended up being hospitalised for three days with a kidney inflammation.
I’LL NEVER USE THEM AGAIN
Western Sydney dad Javier Borello says he will never use National Home Doctors Service again after claiming a nightmare experience with a dismissive doctor left his two young children wracked with pain.
Mr Borello called it in August when his son Samuel, 2, and daughter Olivia, 3, both came down with raging temperatures.
But he said the doctor who arrived appeared as if he was too busy trying to get to his next appointment to properly diagnose the youngsters.
“He was in a rush, and you could tell he wasn’t checking everything properly,” Mr Borello said.
“He said they were fine and to keep an eye on them the next day.”
But when Mr Borello’s wife took the children to a GP the following day, the family discovered the children were actually suffering from tonsillitis.
“I’d be worried they’d tell people who had something more serious they were also fine,” he said. “I’ll never use them again, it’s not worth it.”
Another mum from Melbourne told the Daily Telegraph the service had misdiagnosed her three-month-old son when he had bronchiolitis.
The woman, who asked not to be named, said the GP had rushed the check-up and she was told her son was “fine” only to discover the next day when she went to her usual doctor how ill her little boy was.
MUM LEFT HANGING IN HER HOUR OF NEED
Devoted mum Judith Young says she desperately waited hours for a National Home Doctors Service GP to arrive and treat her four-year-old son.
Ms Young said she was told a doctor would be able to come to her house within four hours when she called the service at 7.30pm last Friday.
However, at 2.30am, an agonising seven hours after she rang and 10 minutes after she was told she was only “two patients away”, she received a text from the service saying the doctor would no longer be coming.
And Ms Young, from Lara in Victoria, said by that time it was too late to take her son Ollie to the local emergency room. “I was terrified. I was really worried it could be something like meningococcal,” she said.
Fortunately Ollie turned out to only have a virus, but Ms Young said she is worried about what would have happened if the situation had been more serious.
Dozens of other patients have also complained online about having their appointments abruptly cancelled hours after they were promised that doctors were on their way to treat them and their families.
Source: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/after-hours-gp-services-using-underqualified-doctors/news-story/4008e837fab04e0837b8122e64bca1dc