NEW REPORT SHOWS MORE SUPPORT NEEDED TO DELIVER 9 OUT OF 10 BULK BILLING PROMISE IN THE ACT

Research released today by healthcare directory Cleanbill analysing the Albanese Government’s expansion of the bulk billing incentive reveals the change will result in only one additional practice bulk billing in the ACT.

The expansion of the incentive will add 740 bulk billing practices nationally but the ACT is forecast to go from having only 4 GP practices that bulkbill to 5 by November 2025.

This sharply contradicts the Government’s own advice at the time the incentives were announced, with Senator Gallagher saying at the time that “Labor’s plan to Strengthen Medicare will boost the number of fully bulk billed GP practices to around 25 in Canberra…”

ACT Independent Senator David Pocock said Cleanbill’s analysis strengthens the case for the Government to recategorise the ACT as a regional area (known technically as an MMM2 area), so that Canberrans can receive higher rebates.

“If Labor is serious about shifting the dial on bulk billing in the ACT then we need solutions tailored to our market,” Senator Pocock said.

“The ACT has the lowest rate of bulk billing in the country and the highest out of pocket costs.

“How is it fair that electorates like Chifley or Blaxland in Western Sydney have a 98% GP bulk billing rate while Bean, Canberra and Fenner range from just 48 to 55%? Even the Northern Sydney area, encompassing the wealthiest electorates in the country, has a bulk billing rate almost 20 points higher than the ACT at 70.8%.

“I am calling on the Albanese Government to listen to the evidence and do more to support bulk billing in the ACT, from support for longer consultation to revisiting our MMM classification so that Canberrans can access higher rebates.”

Senator Pocock has also pushed back against Minister Butler’s criticism of Cleanbill’s data.

The Minister said today that the analysis is fundamentally flawed because it relied on the assumption that if a GP clinic didn’t bulk-bill all services for non-concessional adults, then they must not bulk-bill any service for any patients. Cleanbill’s report analyses the Government’s new incentives, and one of the new incentives can only be claimed if a GP practice bulk bills every single person, for every single service.”

Minister Butler has further said that the policy would work “because it has already worked for the patients the incentive already applies to: pensioners, concession card holders and families with kids.

However, recent data obtained through Senate Estimates by Senator Pocock has shown the policy has so far failed to move the needle in the ACT.

“At Senate Estimates I’ve been told that the Department can’t produce figures for concession card holders, and that the bulk billing rate for under 16s in the ACT has not changed and remains the lowest in the nation at about 66%,” Senator Pocock said.

“Cleanbill’s report today aligns with what I’m hearing from ACT GPs and practices, which is that the market conditions in the ACT are tough and that rebates, even when you include the incentives, just don’t match up to what it costs to deliver the service.”