Cutting Chai with Lakshmi Ganapathy is a monthly series of bite-sized interviews with prominent South Asians showcasing their career and personality and celebrating their South Asian Australian identity.
DR ABHISHEK VERMA is a Melbourne-based GP who was recently made Chair of the Victorian Medical Board, the youngest person appointed since the commencement of the national registration scheme. Awarded GP of the Year in 2022, he is also an RACGP examiner and often treats recent migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who struggle to access healthcare.
Medicine is quite demanding as a career. What kind of person is drawn to becoming a doctor?
Dr Abhishek Verma: Medicine is such a diverse field – everyone can do something in medicine if they have an interest in it. I guess the willingness to work hard [is an important quality.] I’ll give you an example – I’m a doctor, both of my younger brothers are doctors, same upbringing, same family, but we’ve all got different personalities, and we’ve all done something different in medicine.
My younger brother is a dermatologist because he enjoys the lifestyle that affords, and the work he does is quite interventional, like taking out skin cancers. My other brother worked as a GP, but then he subsequently worked in medical management because it aligns with his interest in managing businesses and looking at finances and stuff like that.
There’s something for everybody in medicine; it doesn’t just have to be blood and guts! It becomes part of who you are and your identity though; for me and my brothers, every time we meet, we’re talking about medical stuff.
Nowadays it’s very difficult for a lot of families to afford to see their GP and for GPs to keep up with their business costs. What’s going on?
Dr Abhishek Verma: The cost of doing business as a general practitioner is probably unsustainable based on the rebates, but there’ve been some uplifts in Medicare, and I think it’s far more feasible now to bulk bill patients. My personal philosophy is that we should be trying to bulk bill pretty much everyone, and most of my career has been at exclusively bulk billing medical practices, because I don’t think cost should be a barrier to accessing good healthcare.
Under the current legislation, there are some funding streams available to other [practitioners] that aren’t available to GPs – for example, GPs can’t be reimbursed by private health insurance companies. I think that’s a fantastic funding stream that we haven’t tapped into; GPs keep looking at increasing Medicare rebates and the government’s only got so much money, so it’s not feasible that we can keep asking for increased Medicare rebates.
We need to look at other forms of funding to support our patients; I see getting funding from private health insurance as one option, noting that the interest of private health insurance [companies] is pretty much aligned with GPs – to keep patients out of hospital.
But with the uplift in the rebates as they have been, I strongly believe that doctors are in a better position to bulk bill than ever before.
If you were to redesign the Medicare rebate system, what would you do?
Dr Abhishek Verma: If I was the architect of the system, I would make bulk billing mandatory for anyone between the ages of 0 to 18 and above the age of 60, because that’s when you see chronic disease and more frequent engagement with healthcare – there needs to be increased rebates for those age groups. I think Medicare should be redesigned to augment the rebates there, so that GPs are encouraged to bulk bill those patients, because they have the highest needs and greatest vulnerability.
For the working age, 18 to 60 group, I can see why there may be an appetite to privately bill. Wherever possible, I think we should still be bulk billing them as well, but I think we should be focusing on increasing rebates just in those target demographics to encourage GPs to be able to bulk bill those particular patients.
What’s something that you’re currently listening to/reading/playing/watching?
Dr Abhishek Verma: One of the things I often read is autobiographies; I’m currently working through an autobiography of a comedian, Michael McIntyre. My wife and I have been to a couple of his shows. I’m working through his autobiography when I get the time to read it.
What’s a word that you like in a South Asian language, and what does it mean?
Dr Abhishek Verma: Paagal (Hindi for ‘crazy’). I identify with that – it’s something that I was called a lot as a kid when my parents were exasperated with my behaviour, or I did things that were illogical.
And finally: Soan Papdi or Papdi Chaat?
Dr Abhishek Verma: Papdi Chaat. My mum is an amazing cook, and I think she makes Papdi Chaat as well as anybody, so I think it’s probably just from lived experience.
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