{"id":569659,"date":"2026-03-28T09:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T09:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/569659\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T09:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T09:15:11","slug":"services-australia-urges-patients-to-check-if-they-are-owed-some-of-272-million-from-medicare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/569659\/","title":{"rendered":"Services Australia urges patients to check if they are owed some of $272 million from Medicare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly 1 million Australians have not received their share of $272 million in unclaimed Medicare rebates because they have not registered their bank details.<\/p>\n

The money is owed to people who have visited the doctor but not claimed their rebates, with more than a quarter of the affected people aged between 18 and 24.<\/p>\n

The average amount owed is $280, but 309 Australians are owed $10,000 or more, according to government figures.<\/p>\n

\"anthony<\/p>\n

Strengthening Medicare was one of Labor’s big commitments in the 2025 election campaign. (Getty\/Bloomberg)<\/p>\n

A handful of people are owed more than $30,000, but the government acknowledged that those people could be dead.<\/p>\n

Services Australia has been trying to rectify the issue for years, but the amount of unclaimed money has only grown, from $230 million in 2023.<\/a><\/p>\n

People owed large sums<\/p>\n

General manager of Services Australia Hank Jongen says, for affected people, once they registered their bank details, the money would automatically land in their account.<\/p>\n

“Believe it or not, it’s simply because we don’t have their bank account details,” he told triple j Hack.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately, a lot of people with Medicare enter into ‘set and forget’ mode.”<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

Mr Jongen insists the agency makes special efforts to try to contact those who were owed large sums of money, including emailing their myGov account.<\/p>\n

“In addition to that, we contact doctors and say \u2026 we don’t have bank account details, [so] when the patient next comes in, could you just encourage them to update their bank account details,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But if the trail runs out, in terms of up-to-date address details or bank account details, then we have very few options available to us.”<\/p>\n

‘Like winning Lotto’<\/p>\n

Of the 972,300 people owed money, more than 253,00 are aged between 18 and 24.<\/p>\n

Nurse and lawyer Margaret Faux, who has written a book about medical fees, says the money would make a huge difference for many Australians.<\/p>\n

\"Margaret<\/p>\n

Margaret Faux is encouraging young people especially to check their bank details.\u00a0 (Four Corners)<\/p>\n

“It will be like winning Lotto, I’m not even kidding,” Dr Faux told triple j Hack.<\/p>\n

Some university students in Canberra who spoke to triple j Hack were unaware they had to register their bank details with Medicare, while others said they were very vigilant about checking their rebates landed in their accounts.<\/p>\n

For people bulk-billed for a service, the rebates are not an issue because they would not have paid for their appointment in the first place.<\/p>\n

In the lead-up to last May’s federal election, Labor promised to make nine out of 10 GP visits free by increasing bulk-billing incentives for doctors as part of an $8.5 billion pledge.<\/p>\n

Figures published last month<\/a> showed the bulk-billing rate rose from 77.6 per cent between July and September to 81.4 per cent between November and January.<\/p>\n

But some Canberra students who spoke to triple j Hack said they struggled to find clinics where bulk-billing was available, while others were not aware of what it was.<\/p>\n

The Australian Capital Territory continues to have the lowest number of bulk-billing practices in the country, at 18 clinics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 1 million Australians have not received their share of $272 million in unclaimed Medicare rebates because they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[75037,43,8192,279998,44,125427,48161,41,39,42,40,44318,279999],"class_list":["post-569659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-hack-podcast","tag-headlines","tag-medicare","tag-medicare-rebates","tag-news","tag-rebates","tag-services-australia","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-triple-j-hack","tag-unclaimed-rebate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569659","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=569659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}