Ideas for overhauling Australia's ailing health system will lead the agenda when state and territory leaders attend their first national cabinet meeting of the year.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is formally meeting with premiers and chief ministers after he hosted them for dinner at the Lodge on Thursday night.
The meeting will discuss the findings of a review by the Medicare task force on measures to improve healthcare affordability and accessibility, support people with chronic health conditions and take pressure off hospitals.
While the prime minister is expected to be pushed for extra federal financial help, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said more money wasn't necessarily the solution to improving the health system.
"It's not (about) looking at things in isolation, it's looking at things together and making sure we have a better system in place," he told reporters in Canberra ahead of the meeting.
"That's why I think the less discussion around the financial arrangements today, the better. It's more about the best public policy.
"If we can't reform the health system in this country after a one-in-100-year pandemic then we never will."
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said ideas such as pharmacists being able to prescribe medications for common ailments should be considered.
"I don't think we should be discouraging organisations ... from constructive suggestions," he said.
"Provided they are clinically safe, I think there should be an appetite to embrace new, innovative ideas that keep people out of our hospitals."
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews agreed the problems with Medicare were not all about money and needed a national approach rather than each state working in isolation.
"The most important thing here is that good ideas and common sense reform drives this first and foremost and we can fund it appropriately after that," he said.
"We can, out of this meeting, have a shared common purpose and a statement that says health reform is top of the list for us, both as individual jurisdictions and as a national cabinet.
"It all starts with the acknowledgement that this system is broken and we can do so much better."
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners called on leaders to put patients first in Medicare reforms.
President Nicole Higgins said improving costs and access to medicines must be on the table as well as reforming anti-competitive pharmacy laws.
"The Medicare task force review is about improving access to care for patients and we need to consider everything as part of this," she said.
"Australia's pharmacy ownership laws are anti-competitive and this inflates the cost to consumers, makes it harder for people to access medicines and reduces choice."
