Medi-couldn’t-Care Less

I wonder how many Australians, like me, have found communicating with our national health care bureaucracy, Medicare, about as easy as winning Lotto? It shouldn’t be that hard, Boomer — after all, the website features a 24-hour contact number, right?

Well, yes. But after finding that a refund of $41.40 owing on my wife’s recent visit to our non-bulk billing medical centre hadn’t made it back to our bank account in more than a week, despite a receipt showing it had been paid, she visited the GP’s office and was told she would have to contact Medicare.

“It’s obviously been paid somewhere,” was her helpful advice. Maybe, but not to us. How many other people even bother to check and how many other “refunds” end up “somewhere”? So I got on the phone to the giant health entity to enquire how that could happen.

I didn’t really expect a human to answer the call – what bureaucracy or big business does that these days?  So I listened to the pleasant female-sounding AI bot asking what the call was about in a couple of words, I said “Unpaid refund”. She/it then rattled off a variety of numbered options, I chose one that sounded appropriate but was then told I could find the answer to various questions via the Medicare app or through their MyGov link.

“Have a nice day,” she/it concluded in the same cheery voice before hanging up on me.

I had already had a look on MyGov and checked the list of refunds paid. This latest one wasn’t included.

So I called the Medicare hotline again, went through the options with Bot Lady and chose the last on the list: speak to an operator. Finally I might get somewhere, but then the same pleasant voice told me that because of the volume of calls, none was available.

“Try again later..”  Click.

No option of waiting in a queue for an hour listening to the same boring tune played over and over, no option of requesting a call-back which some non-government service providers do actually include when inquiries reach overload. With a slight trace of steam coming out my ears, I went on-line again in an attempt to find another way of contact — like, you know, an email address.

That should be simple and easy, let alone logical, and it would relieve pressure on their “24 hour, seven days a week” call centre. Or so I thought, and after searching through a multitude of word salads I did finally discover what was claimed to be an email address, which I copied and pasted into an address bar, and cc’d my own address.

I then outlined the case of the missing refund, attached a copy of the receipt stating it had been paid, and asked for the matter to be rectified.

A second after hitting send, it bounced back with the message that the address wasn’t recognised. More steam from the ears – was it an old address or did it only apply in some other state? Back online again, now searching all the Medicare links and options through MyGov. I finally found one for complaints, so let’s try that!

Again there were numerous options concerningwhat the complaint might entail but finally I managed to type a message about the missing refund and asked for it to be paid. I also included the suggestion that they could save everyone a lot of bother if they just provided a genuine contact email address. They did give me a feedback number a few days ago, but at the time of writing there has been no response.

The Albanese government made a big fanfare announcing its $6.1 billion “Strengthening Medicare reforms” last October, claiming it was “the largest investment in bulk billing in Medicare’s 40-year history.” According to Health Minister Mark Butler, Australians saved an estimated $15 million in GP gap fees in November and December, “helping to ease the cost-of-living pressures on household budgets.”

Well, Mr Butler, finding a GP that bulk bills in our neck of the woods, which also happens to be one of Australia’s major tourism hot spots, is a bit like my opening analogy of winning Lotto. And our local medicos have actually increased their fees since your bulk-billing largesse.

Might I be so bold as to suggest you could improve services by making the Medicare call centre actually answer calls. Or provide a call-back when they can. Or just include a contact email that actually works in each state and territory. How hard would that be?

John Mikkelsen is a former editor of three Queensland regional newspapers, columnist,  freelance writer and author of the Amazon Books Memoir, Don’t Call Me Nev