A survey of more than 200 GP practices shows six out of ten are worried about their future financial viability, and more than half now charge for services that used to be free.
GenPro, the association which represents general practice owners, has released its annual Pulse survey results.
There were 206 practices surveyed in total – a little under half of the association’s total membership.
The results show 60 percent of practices are concerned about their future financial viability – only a five percent improvement on last year’s survey.
GenPro chair Dr Angus Chambers said practices were often reluctant to hike fees.
“What more can you do if you’re concerned about your viability? Crank your patient’s fees more, and it’s not good for patients, they’re struggling as it is.”
Last year, 85 percent of practices surveyed said they had just increased their fees, or planned to shortly. This question did not appear in this year’s survey.
Chambers said the ability to charge patients more had likely kept some practices from falling deeper into financial trouble.
Fifty-six percent said they were now charging for services that used to be free, such as referrals and medical certificates, and 22 percent had reduced services in the past six months.
Chambers said the areas of slight improvement on previous years were “green shoots” for the sector.
Last year, 85 percent of practices surveyed said they had just increased their fees, or planned to shortly.
123rf
More clinics were accepting new patient enrolments than last year, with the number of clinics with their books closed dropping from 36 percent in 2025, to 13 percent this year.
However, staff shortages continued to pose a problem – 47 percent of clinics had doctor vacancies (down only slightly from 54 percent last year) and 18 percent had nursing vacancies (down from 23 percent last year).
And 47 percent of clinics said they were only accepting selected enrolments – a similar number to last year.
Twelve percent reported making a financial loss this past year, down from 18 percent the year before.
Despite the improvement, Chambers said it was still a concerning number.
“Twelve percent of practices making a loss… [if they] ended up going out of business, that’d be like 500,000 patients without doctors and nurse practitioners,” he said.
Minister of Health Simeon Brown said the survey showed the sector was in better shape than it was a year ago.
He said the reduced number of practices operating at a loss, down from 19 percent to 12 percent, was a significant improvement.
“That’s due in part to the significant uplift in funding from the government in the last two years for primary care. We’ve had record increases in funding for primary care under this National government. But I think it also does show there’s more work to do to make sure that general practice is well supported,” Brown said.
“Primary care is the cornerstone of our health system. It plays a really important role in ensuring people can get timely access to the health care that they need. And so National will continue to support primary care in the investment decisions that we make.”
Brown said the Government knew some practices were still under financial pressure, which is why it had put in an additional $120.6 million every year for general practice.
He said that from 1 July it has also changed the way clinics are funded for the first time in more than 20 years, so that funding followed patient need, including multimorbidity, rurality and deprivation.
Brown said the number of clinics with GP and nurse vacancies showed the Government needed to double down on the initiatives underway to grow the number of doctors going into primary care.
“Whether that’s growing the number of training places at our universities, the new University of Waikato Medical School, or other initiatives such as training 120 nurses to become nurse practitioners. All of those initiatives make a big difference to increase the workforce in primary care, because we know that is critically important to make it easier for patients to be able to get an appointment when they need one.”