New Medicare data has revealed the number of GP visits has dropped by almost 2.5 million over the last year with cost of living pressures and a lack of bulk billing to blame.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners acting vice president and WA chair Dr Ramya Raman spoke to 6PR Breakfast hosts Millsy and Karl and said a GP service simply running on bulk billing was finding it “hard to survive”.

“Practices have had to close their doors not because they’re wanting to but appropriate levels of funding have not been directed to GP’s to be able to support the practice to deliver the care… in terms of running the cost of it in itself staff, electricity, the IT updates, equipment and consumables,” Dr Raman said.

Click PLAY below to listen to the full interview:

Image: iStock.