Professor Paul Torzillo

Ngunnappa Health Council services...

people who live across 120,000 square kilometres in the northwest of South Australia, right in the middle of the country.

We've got six main clinics.

They're staffed without reception staff, without admin officers.

They service a population where, on best estimates, less than 4% of people speak English in their home, let alone in their community.

And the idea that we would somehow be able to produce a form, either digital or written, explain what Medicare is, then explain what assignment of Medicare benefit means, then get a person to consent, then give them a document about the items for which Medicare will be billed, it just can't happen.

It's not that we don't

want to do this, it's that we can't do it.

And I guess, you know, it's pretty clear that Aboriginal health services were developed in order to get around the difficulties in accessing healthcare.

They were supposed to simplify it, facilitate healthcare delivery.

And this really is a retrograde step in terms of being able to deliver healthcare to this

population with high health needs and limited access.

Look, we've had some interactions with the department and those interactions have been pretty clear.

Representatives of Medicare have said this is the legislation, it's going to be implemented and

I mean, as recently as May 21st, there's a frequently asked questions published by the department and it says, quote, medical practitioners will be legally required from the 1st of July to use new assignment of benefit processes and agreements to secure a compliant assignment before related bulk billing Medicare claims can be made.

So it's pretty clear

As far as the bureaucracy are concerned, this is what's going to happen as of the 1st of July.

We estimate pretty conservatively it's going to reduce costs

our budget by about $2 million.

It's got some other spin-offs.