Integral to health care and a key aspect of an $8 billion election commitment, the most detailed report card on whether your family can access a GP at no cost has now been disclosed.
Exclusive data from health directory Cleanbill projects a 55 per cent jump in bulk billing clinics nationwide, with 740 additional centres.
The most significant increase is expected in Victoria (233), followed by New South Wales (213), Queensland (149), South Australia (76), Western Australia (43), Northern Territory (14), Tasmania (11), and lastly, the ACT (1).
The new financial incentives kick in on November 1.
“There can be little doubt: because of this policy, more Australians will be bulk billed,” Cleanbill founder James Gillespie said.
“There are all sorts of different economic circumstances that different GPs will have to take into account.”
Due to the way payments are structured, substantial increases are projected in regions outside major metropolitan areas. However, despite higher rebates, the availability of GPs remains significantly lower.
Nationals leader David Littleproud said: “Because they took away our doctors, foreign doctors used to be only allowed in regional areas – now the government changed that and included peri-urban areas so all our doctors left for the city.”
The report found clinics that don’t bulk bill will be unlikely to reduce costs.
“Which means that your out of pocket costs may go up, as they have for the last three years,” Gillespie said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told ABC’s Insiders: “We want to focus very much on cost of living, that was the basis that we were elected in.”
The projections are below the government’s pre-election pledge of 90 per cent bulk billing rate, although that is by 2030 and the short-term the focus will be at the pharmacy.
“Cutting back the cost of medicines to just $25, that’s the same price as in 2004,” Albanese said.
