Minister urges GPs to claim bulk billing millions

Federal Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler has urged GPs to claim up to $140 million that remains up for grabs following the introduction of the tripled bulk-billing incentive last year.
 
In a speech earlier this month, Minister Butler revealed that a considerable sum of that extra funding had not yet found its way to clinicians after the bulk-billed rebate for the standard level B consult was made 50% higher in regional, rural and remote areas in November 2023.
 
‘In the first year since the incentive was tripled, across the eligible MBS items, more than six million visits were bulk billed, but that tripled incentive was not claimed,’ he said.
 
‘Hundreds of millions of dollars in funding left on the table.’
 
In a statement to newsGP, Minister Butler confirmed the unclaimed sum is around $140 million.
 
‘I’m urging GPs to take advantage of the incentive whenever you can,’ he said.
 
‘If you’ve provided a bulk-billed service, then you should take advantage of the incentive.
 
‘My message to GPs is: if you think you or your practice has missed out on claiming the incentive, check back over your records and put in any missing claims.’
 
Making his speech at the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) conference in Canberra, Minister Butler highlighted that many services are still not claiming the incentive.
 
‘Now, of course, Aboriginal Medical Services and ACCHOs can bill Medicare and can certainly claim the tripled bulk-billing incentive, though we know that some health services, in the Aboriginal community controlled sector and beyond, aren’t claiming it, even though they can,’ he said.
 
The tripled bulk-billing incentive – which was a key RACGP advocacy request in the run-up to the 2023–24 Federal Budget – was confirmed in May 2023 and came into effect the following November.
 
Since then, bulk-billing rates have increased significantly, with an additional 5.4 million consults in the first year according to data released last month.
 
In October 2024, 77.3% of all GP visits were bulk billed, an increase of 1.7 percentage points nationwide compared to the previous October before the incentives changed, Department of Health and Aged Care (DoHAC) figures indicate.
 
Rates in every state and territory saw a rise, with an estimated 103,000 additional bulk-billed visits to the GP every week – of which around 40% were in rural and regional areas.
 
While newsGP requested more detail on the regions or types of practice that had not claimed the incentive, DoHAC said it was not suitable to provide further information as the figures were estimated.
 
However, it said it had ‘high confidence’ in the estimates based on the available data.
 
Bulk-billing claims can be made through Services Australia up to two years after the service was provided.
 
The complexity of Medicare and the potential for under-claiming has long been raised by GPs, with the issue coming under particular scrutiny following media coverage of alleged Medicare ‘rorting’ in late 2022.
 
Many GPs countered that narrative by highlighting the extent to which many general practices may be under-billing.
 
In a poll at the time, a huge majority of newsGP readers said they lost income due to Medicare under-billing, with 97% of respondents reporting that they under-claimed available patient rebates.
 
The coverage prompted Minister Butler to instigate a Review of Medicare Integrity and Compliance, which was chaired by health economist Dr Pradeep Philip.
 
A subsequent report published in April 2023 described complexity, unclear compliance processes and flaws in Medicare support, with Dr Philip calling the system ‘currently not fit for purpose’ and issuing a series of recommendations for its improvement.
 
Last month, the DoHAC issued the Understanding Medicare: Provider Handbook as a result of one of the review’s recommendations.

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