A plan to overhaul the healthcare system will go before the nation's leaders this week with states and territories pushing for the Commonwealth to pick up more of the bill.
The Australian Medical Association says only three of 201 public hospitals it analysed delivered care in the recommended time-frames.
That's down from 15 hospitals three years ago.
AMA president Steve Robson wants the federal government to increase its share of hospital funding from 45 to 50 per cent.
Professor Robson has also called for new measures to tackle the backlog of surgeries, saying the waiting list will top half a million by July.
"For their part, the states and territories need to commit to improving hospital performance by re-investing that extra five per cent," he added.
"Both need to fund additional ongoing performance improvement, capacity expansion, and ways to reduce avoidable admissions."
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said a report from the Medicare task force will be considered by leaders at Friday's national cabinet meeting.
"We need to have better interaction of primary health care and the hospital system. Part of the key here is to get people out of emergency departments," he said.
The prime minister said having 24/7 access to nurses in nursing homes and disability care is one measure that will reduce the number of people presenting to EDs.
"We need to talk through the hospital system, the way that it works, as a whole," he said.
"It's not surprising people always argue for increased funding."
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president said there needed to be an urgent funding boost to help meet patient needs.
Dr Nicole Higgins says it's become harder to see a GP due to decades of neglect and underfunding.
"This has caused the crisis in our hospital system, with wait times blowing out and ambulances ramping," she said.
Dr Higgins said GPs need to work hand in glove with allied health professionals, pharmacists and nurses to avoid doubling up.
"One person needs to be responsible for managing a patient's care and GPs are best placed to do this," she said.
"GPs are best placed to manage patient care because we have the required training and expertise in generalist care and diagnostics."
Options before the government include increasing the Medicare rebate to make seeing a GP more affordable.
But Health Minister Mark Butler said the current system wouldn't be able to deliver the type of modern care needed even if extra money was pumped in.
"(The system is) not delivering the wraparound, multidisciplinary care that modern Australia needs," he said.
"We can't just add more money to the existing system. We have to reform the system."
Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said the government needed to address crippling workforce shortages so Australians could have timely access to health care.
"It's time for the Albanese Labor government to stop talking about the problems and start implementing measures that will address the crisis in health care," she said.
