03/07/2026
Fee-for-service medicine rewards one thing: seeing the next patient.
Most people think the problem with Australian healthcare is funding. After 100,000 patients and 16 years in the system, I think
the problem is the incentive structure — and they’re not the same thing.
Fee-for-service rewards throughput. Throughput rewards short appointments. Short appointments reward treating symptoms,
not preventing them. A system that doesn’t pay for prevention doesn’t deliver it — it can’t.
The health-conscious patient who wants risk stratification and a clinician who actually tracks their data over time? That
patient has no product inside the public system. Not because nobody cares. Because nobody is paid to care about that.
That’s the design.
The system performing as designed is not the same as the system working for you.
