[Dr] Max Mollenkopf estimates he sees two or three patients each day at his GP practice in Mulubinba/Newcastle who don’t need treatment but require a medical certificate for work.
For employees, a trip to the doctor for a medical certificate can be time-consuming and costly, especially if your appointment isn’t bulk-billed.
Meanwhile, these appointments can take clinical time from people who are genuinely sick, Dr Mollenkopf says.
“If someone is sick and they want to see me, every day of the week I want them to be able to come in,” he says.
“I didn’t sign up to do medicine to do HR policy on behalf of large corporations.”
The overhead, in manhours, paperwork, and simply room-time doesn’t go away for low/no complexity cases, it simply reduces available capacity for the practice. These are people who would, generally, just stay at home for a few days to recover normally and only engage with a doctor if the symptoms persisted, and are only in to see a doctor so they get that paper. A paper which only exists to prevent people from ‘abusing’ sick days.