AMA Fees List indexation and items update
16 Feb 2023
Review of AMA Medical Fees Indexation - findings and adjustment
The AMA List of Medical Services (AMA Fees List) is provided free to members (and to subscribers through a paid licence) for costing assistance and guidance on medical fees.
The AMA Fees List is indexed annually based on macroeconomic indices that better reflect the price increases related to providing medical services, when compared to Medicare’s substandard indexation rate.
The AMA’s indexation is a weighted average of the annual changes in a number of Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) cost and wage indices. The AMA’s indexation methodology has consistently provided higher indexation than that used for other schedules, such as the MBS.
However, the recent and rapid growth in inflation in Australia towards the end of 2022 saw members tell us that they had seen immediate and rapid price increases for medical practices, of which a proportion were potentially not captured by the lagging, 12-month ABS measures used to underpin the AMA’s regular, annual indexation. As such, an economist led review was undertaken by the AMA at the end of 2022 to investigate the latest inflation and wages data.
The findings of the review noted the AMA’s indexation methodology was sound, defensible and should be retained. However, it also noted that the rapid increases in costs in the latter part of 2022, particularly in relation to costs such as salaries (where demand is outstripping supply and putting pressure on wages), was likely impacting medical practices and may not show up in all ABS datasets immediately.
The AMA determined the spike in these costs needed to be reflected in the short term, for the AMA Fees List to continue to be an accurate and useful guide for members and subscribers.
Therefore, the AMA will make an additional indexation adjustment of 2.13% to all items on the AMA Fees List in early March 2023, bringing the total 2022 indexation to 5.58%, to reflect the increased cost of providing medical services in the current economic environment. Going forward, the AMA will continue to monitor additional indexes for significant fluctuations over the short term.
