Our Billing Policy Explained
Nearly all GP practices in Australia are private businesses that decide on business models that either provide bulk billing to everyone, charge everyone private fees or have a mixture of both based on certain criteria. To be able to bulk bill everyone requires a high volume of patient throughput for a business to be viable. We do not believe this is a model under which we could provide appropriate quality of care. On the other hand, private billing everyone, regardless of personal circumstances, makes healthcare inaccessible to vulnerable people in our community, which we also find unacceptable.
Mixed billing allows us to be viable as a business, accessible to the whole community, and provide sufficient time for our patients to provide quality healthcare. As a result, we undertake to bulk bill the following patients for standard time-based GP consultations:
- All children under 16 years of age.
- All patients 65 years old and over who have a current government Health Care Card (in addition to their Medicare Card)
- All DVA Gold Card holders
- All DVA White Card holders for consultations that relate to their accepted conditions.
All patients outside these criteria should expect to pay a private fee, some of which will usually be rebated from Medicare. Unless you meet one of these criteria, please don’t ask the doctor to bulk bill you, as your request will be refused. If you do meet the criteria, you don’t need to ask the doctor to bulk bill you, as this will be done automatically by a receptionist after your consultation.
When the government significantly increased the bulk billing incentive in the 2023 budget, they did so because clinics around the country were increasingly forced to stop bulk billing completely to continue to operate. When they announced this increase in the bulk billing incentive, they did not announce that it was only going to apply to time-based consultations and not to any other services provided by general practices. As a result of this limitation on the bulk billing incentive increase, as well as Medicare policy preventing bulk billing where there is any other charge associated with the service (e.g. for consumables used in minor surgical procedures), all patients can expect to pay a gap when they receive other services, especially where there are consumables used that are paid for and provided by the practice.
- Familiarise yourself with what bulk billing is (click here for an explanation) so you are aware of what you are asking from the doctor, and
- Ask about this prior to your consultation, not after the service has already been provided.
