The cost of medical and dental care is still a barrier to many Australians, with one in five people delaying or not making visits to the dentist because of the cost.
One in 20 people in 2014-15 had also delayed or not visited a GP because of cost, according to the results of a survey released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Friday. The equivalent figure for avoiding visits to medical specialists was 8%, or one in 12.
The barrier to seeing a dentist was more pronounced for people living in disadvantaged areas, with 28.3% of people in the lowest socioeconomic areas having delayed or not seen a dentist because of the cost. This is over twice the equivalent figure for people in the least disadvantaged areas, 12.1%.
And 7.6% of people also said they had delayed or did not get prescribed medication due to the cost.
The bureau also surveyed people’s experience of waiting times for GP appointments. Overall, 21% of people felt they had waited a longer than acceptable time to see a GP, which is down from 23% in 2013-14.
People living in outer regional or remote areas were more likely to say they had waited longer than they felt acceptable (23%) than those in major cities (20%).
