General Practice is being forced to reinvent itself, with Dr Max Mollenkopf

“If we want primary care to survive, we need to stop assuming patients have no choice.”

When I invited Newcastle GP Max Mollenkopf onto Innovation Insider, I expected to talk about bulk billing, primary care and maybe a few thoughts on insurers investing in clinics. Instead, we spent more than an hour discussing something much bigger.

General practice is facing an identity crisis. Not because GPs are disappearing. Not because consumers don’t value healthcare. But because the assumptions that have underpinned primary care for decades are rapidly changing.

Max sees this every day. He runs a GP practice, advises health startups, and spends a lot of time thinking about how primary care evolves. Throughout our conversation he kept returning to one idea.

Healthcare consumers now have choices. And that changes everything.

The old model is under pressure

For decades, general practice occupied a privileged position. If you needed a prescription, you saw a GP. If your child was sick, you saw a GP. If you wanted ongoing care, you saw a GP. Today, that landscape looks very different.

Consumers can choose pharmacists, urgent care clinics, telehealth providers, nurse practitioners, menopause clinics, weight loss services, ADHD providers and a growing number of specialised digital health offerings.

Governments are funding alternatives. Corporate providers are expanding. New overseas-trained clinicians are entering the market.

At the same time, the traditional GP workforce is changing, with fewer doctors working full-time and many preferring flexible or part-time arrangements.

Individually, none of these trends are fatal. Collectively, they are forcing general practice to answer a difficult question.

What is the unique value of a GP?

Patients and consumers are not the same thing

One of Max’s observations has stuck with me. He distinguishes between “patients” and “consumers”. Patients are vulnerable. They have limited choice. They need care. Consumers have agency. They compare providers, seek convenience, expect good experiences and choose services that fit their needs. Healthcare increasingly needs to serve both groups.

That explains why we are seeing specialist services emerge around specific problems. Weight loss. Menopause. Skin health. ADHD. Longevity. These services are often beautifully designed, digitally enabled and highly tailored to their audiences.

Traditional general practice, meanwhile, is increasingly caring for older, more complex and more vulnerable populations. The danger is that the simpler, more profitable consumer services fragment away from comprehensive primary care.

The opportunity is for GPs to rethink how they engage consumers in the first place.

The most interesting innovation I heard all month

At Digital Health Festival earlier this year, Max mentioned an experiment his practice was exploring. I haven’t stopped thinking about it. The practice physically split itself into two experiences.

One was a bulk-billing clinic. Shorter appointments. Self check-in. Lower cost. Longer waits.

The other was a private clinic. Longer consultations. More personalised service. Faster access. Higher cost.

Patients could choose the experience that best suited them. Max described it like an airline. Economy and business class still get you to the same destination. The experience along the way is different.

It’s a simple idea, but an important one. Healthcare has traditionally been uncomfortable acknowledging that consumers value different things. Some prioritise affordability. Some prioritise speed. Some prioritise relationships. Some prioritise convenience.

Designing for those differences feels far more sustainable than pretending everyone wants the same experience.

The elephant in the room, insurers entering primary care

Eventually our conversation turned to insurers. This is where Max and I have publicly disagreed in the past. But what struck me was how much common ground exists.

Clinicians worry about insurer motives. Insurers argue they want to invest in prevention and improve outcomes. Consumers often sit somewhere in the middle, uncertain who to trust.

Max made an important point. Many clinicians still view insurers through an American lens. They worry insurers will deny treatment or use clinical data against patients.

But Australian private health insurers operate under very different rules and constraints. That doesn’t mean the concerns are invalid. It means insurers need to do a much better job explaining their intentions. Why are they investing? How will patients benefit? How will clinical independence be protected?

Because if insurers genuinely believe prevention and better primary care improve outcomes, then their incentives may be more aligned with clinicians than many people assume.

As Max put it:

“The industry has failed to clearly communicate its intent, leaving a void where misinformation and distrust thrive.”

That observation extends well beyond primary care. It’s true across almost every part of healthcare.

The future probably looks more connected

Towards the end of the episode, Max floated a future where healthcare becomes more of a hub-and-spoke model. Where continuity of record becomes more important than continuity with a single clinician. Where telehealth handles routine care. Where physical clinics still matter, but differently. Where consumers move seamlessly between providers while maintaining a shared health record.

Whether that future arrives in five years or fifteen, I think he’s right about one thing. General practice isn’t disappearing. But it is being forced to become more explicit about the value it creates. And perhaps that’s healthy. Because healthcare innovation isn’t always about new technology. Sometimes it’s about asking a deceptively simple question: If patients had genuine choice, why would they choose you?

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🎧 Listen to the full Innovation Insider episode with Max Mollenkopf to hear our discussion on primary care, corporatisation, insurers, trust and where healthcare goes next 👇🏻

📊 Related reading: Our 2025 PHI Innovation Report explores how insurers such as Medibank and Bupa are expanding into healthcare services and what that means for consumers, providers and the future of care.

🤝 For insurers exploring health partnerships or primary care strategies: Our PHI Partnership Accelerator helps organisations identify, prioritise and execute partnership opportunities that create value for members and providers alike.