{"id":255854,"date":"2025-11-01T17:13:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T17:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/255854\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T17:13:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T17:13:30","slug":"more-than-120-wa-doctors-clinics-to-be-fully-bulk-billing-from-saturday-november-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/255854\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 120 WA doctors\u2019 clinics to be fully bulk billing from Saturday November 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 120 doctors\u2019 clinics in WA<\/a> will be fully bulk billing from Saturday as GPs take up new Federal Government<\/a> incentives.<\/p>\n

The incentives are part of Anthony Albanese<\/a>\u2019s $8.5 billion Medicare election promise to reduce out-of-pocket costs for patients.<\/p>\n

Health<\/a> Minister Mark Butler said 126 clinics across the State had decided to transition to the incentives scheme ahead of the November 1 start date.<\/p>\n

Of those, 60 already offered full bulk billing across their clinics, while 66 were mixed billing general practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cWest Australians will have more access to bulk billing GPs from Saturday thanks to the Albanese Government,\u201d Mr Butler said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll around the state, from the vast regions to the city, GP practices will move to bulk billing. Labor built Medicare, and we are strengthening it for all Australians.<\/p>\n

Under the plan Labor took to the election, it expects eventually around 4800 GP clinics nationally would begin to bulk-bill \u2014 with an aim to make nine out of 10 GP visits bulk billed by 2030.<\/p>\n

Starting from Saturday, GPs will receive an incentive payment for every single patient they bulk bill. Previously, the incentives only applied to children, pensioners or people with concession cards.<\/p>\n

In addition, clinics that bulk bill every patient will receive a further incentive payment worth 12.5 per of the Medicare benefits schedule amount for the service.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlready, we\u2019ve been told that there are 1000 practices who, this week, are charging gap fees and next week will be moving to a full bulk billing model. That number is growing every single day,\u201d Mr Butler said on Friday, while visiting one of those clinics in Adelaide.<\/p>\n

\u201cBulk billing, for Labor, is the beating heart of Medicare. We want to make sure that as many patients as possible are able to go to the doctor with just this beautiful little green and gold card, not having to take their credit card.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the promise Bob Hawke made 41 years ago to the Australian people, and it\u2019s a promise that we, as a Government, intend to keep delivering on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HealthCamera IconHealth and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler. Credit: News Corp Australia<\/p>\n

The Government has sent communications to every GP clinic in the country informing them of the changes and Mr Butler said he expected more would sign up shortly after the scheme commenced, or that some who intended to shift to full bulk billing hadn\u2019t yet informed the department.<\/p>\n

The Australian Medical Association anticipated the extra money would help GPS provide more support for vulnerable patients because they would have more options to minimise out-of-pocket costs.<\/p>\n

But it said that structural reform of Medicare rebates was still desperately needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe continue to encourage the government to take the next step to increasing Medicare rebates for longer consultations to address the growing complexity of patient care,\u201d AMA vice-president Julian Rait said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatients have increasingly complex care needs, as Australia now has a much higher burden of chronic disease than when Medicare was first invented \u2014 therefore, greater investment in longer consultations is vital to keeping people healthy and out of hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 120 doctors\u2019 clinics in WA will be fully bulk billing from Saturday as GPs take up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,137,44,45],"class_list":["post-255854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-news","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}