Strengthening Medicare: Will increasing the bulk-billing rate and supply of general practitioners increase access to Medicare-funded general practitioner services and does rurality matter?

Table 2 Summary of the dependent and predictor variables

		Highly Accessible* n = 64	Accessible* n = 37	Moderately Accessible* n = 7	Remote* n = 6	Very Remote* n = 5
Dependent Variables
WPEs/head of popⁿ	Mean	0.95	0.83	0.76	0.70	0.54
	SD	0.09	0.06	0.10	0.05	0.12
Consults/SWPE	Mean	6.52	4.98	4.8	5.08	4.61
	SD	0.91	0.53	0.42	0.44	0.62
Predictor Variables
ARIA value	Mean	0.22	2.39	4.77	6.87	10.12
	SD	0.28	0.80	0.65	0.56	0.82
Bulk-billing rate	Mean	82.8%	55.7%	52.1%	65.5%	71.4%
	SD	11.2%	13.4%	15.2%	7.0%	20.6%
GP density	Mean	1.21	0.97	0.87	0.77	0.82
	SD	0.33	0.16	0.27	0.17	0.16
Index of disadvantage	Mean	6.80	5.00	4.50	3.61	3.93
	SD	2.31	1.38	0.84	0.22	0.52
% born NESB country	Mean	16.0%	3.9%	4.9%	4.8%	3.9%
	SD	10.4%	1.6%	2.6%	1.5%	1.9%
% female	Mean	50.4%	50.3%	49.5%	48.5%	47.6%
	SD	1.3%	1.0%	1.8%	2.7%	3.1%
Average age (yrs)	Mean	35.22	35.62	33.86	34.09	32.08
	SD	2.45	1.76	2.20	2.32	2.15

Data Sources: See Table 1
Notes: * Categories based on the following ARIA values: highly accessible = 0 – 1.84, accessible = >1.84 – 3.51, moderately accessible = >3.51 – 5.80, remote = >5,80 – 9.08, very remote = <9.02 – 12. Source: Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA), available at http://www.health.gov.au/ari/aria.htm Accessed 8th January 2000.