Two things change in how Medicare works from 1 July, and together they show where general practice funding is heading: the rebate keeps falling behind real costs, and the paperwork keeps growing.
The increase that was not really one
Firstly, some context. Each year the government sets the increase on two payments that shape your health care, and this year it told us plainly what it thinks the cost of delivering care is doing. When it approved an average 4.41 percent rise in private health insurance premiums from 1 April, its stated reason was that the cost of providing medical and hospital services had risen about 5 percent over the past year. So in its own words, the government accepts that health care costs are climbing fast.
The other payment it sets is the Medicare rebate, the amount you are reimbursed for seeing your doctor. This year that rebate rose just 2.6 percent. That is well below the 4.2 percent cost of living, and around half the 5 percent rise in care costs the government itself acknowledged when it waved through the insurers’ increase. Same year, same rising costs, two very different answers. It continues well over a decade of policy, under both stripes of government, of letting Medicare rebates erode.
In a consulting room, where good care takes the time it takes, that is simply wrong, and the gap between the rebate and the real cost of care keeps widening. None of it is a surprise. We said as much in October 2025, when we wrote that the government’s bulk-billing announcements were not what they seemed, and that tying ourselves to an inadequate rebate was not sustainable.
The paperwork no one is paying for
The other Medicare news is that from 1 July we must formally seek and retain documented proof of your agreement to be bulk billed. Collecting your consent for the government to pay your account on your behalf has always been required, but until now a click in the clinic or a verbal okay was enough, and there was no obligation to keep it. From 1 July the compliance bar rises sharply. Your care does not change, and the rebate behind it keeps shrinking in real terms. What changes is that every practice must now collect, store and keep these agreements for two years in case of audit. One more job, funded by no one, arriving just as the rebate falls further behind. And until that record is on file we cannot submit the claim, so our admin team will spend more time chasing and filing paperwork. It is a small thing in isolation, but multiplied across hundreds of appointments a day it is one more thing pulling us away from helping you.
One practical note. If you get a message from us asking you to confirm a bulk-billed appointment, it is genuine. We will never ask you to reply with bank details or your Medicare number, so if something looks off, do not click, just call us. There is nothing you need to do for now.
The way we care for you is not changing. But we need to be honest. Like everyone, our costs have increased, and our fees will need to increase as well.
The next time you hear a politician talk about investing in Medicare, you will know what the quiet number underneath it actually did. And perhaps you might be moved to ask them to explain how they expect us to work with it?
