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Bulk-billing rate rises to 84.1%
New quarterly figures show more patients are being bulk billed, but increased rebates are still needed, says the RACGP president.
The Federal Government’s $8.5 million Medicare reform continues to push up bulk-billing rates nationally.
General practice bulk-billing rates continue to rise across Australia, climbing to 84.1%, up from 79.2% one year earlier.
New data, released on Monday, shows increases across every state and territory across the June quarter.
The highest uptake of GPs’ bulk billing was in the Northern Territory, at 90.8%. The NT also had the biggest increase from the same quarter last year, of 13 percentage points.
The next highest was New South Wales at 87.5%, with an increase of 4.1 percentage points, followed by Victoria, at 85.7% (up 5.7 percentage points).
The Australian Capital Territory has seen the lowest uptake of bulk billing, sitting at 59.3%, an increase of 2.4 percentage point from the same quarter last year.
Among patient cohorts, the highest growth in bulk billing continues to be in patients aged 16 to 64, rising 8.2 percentage points to 78.6% from the same quarter last year.
Looking at the entirety of 2025–26, GP services account for 34.3% of Medicare services. There were 165.7 million GP services, down from 167.7 million in the previous year.
Concessional patients accounted for 46.7% of GPs’ bulk billing for 2025–26. In the same period, the bulk-billing rate in the country’s most disadvantaged areas was 90.7%, 9.8 percentage points higher than the national bulk-billing rate of 80.9%.
The increases come in the wake of the Federal Government’s 1 November 2025 flagship $8.5 billion Medicare reform, with RACGP President Dr Michael Wright saying the rise in bulk-billing rates is ‘consistent with what we’ve seen since the additional incentives were introduced’.
Dr Wright said while the increase in bulk billing is ‘good news for patients’, increases in rebates for GPs are still needed to ensure equity of access for all patients, particularly those with complex needs.
‘If we want all patients to have affordable access to GP visits, what we really need to do is increase Medicare rebates, particularly for longer and more complex consults, because that’s where the real challenge in Medicare is at the moment; that the rebates are insufficient to cover the costs of care,’ he told newsGP.
‘These stats continue to show that investing more in general practice does give patients access to care.
‘Access to affordable general practice care has never been higher, so that is good news for patients, and a sign of GPs really responding to additional incentives.’
As of 30 June, there were 3819 registered Medicare bulk-billing practices nationally. From before 1 November 2025 to 30 June, the increases across each state and territory were:
- New South Wales – from 1031 practices to 1473
- Victoria – from 635 up to 1044
- Queensland – from 389 up to 675
- South Australia – from 95 up to 217
- Western Australia – from 111 to 235
- Tasmania – from 26 to 72
- Northern Territory – from 61 to 81
- Australian Capital Territory – from 11 to 22
Federal Health and Ageing Minister Mark Butler said bulk billing is ‘good for patients’ hip pockets and good for their health’.
‘Across the country more and more GP practices are becoming fully bulk-billing clinics meaning all patients need is their Medicare card, not their credit card,’ he said.
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