In a wide-ranging speech at the AMA national conference, the federal health minister said his government was ‘leaning in’ to its bulk-billing policy.
Federal health minister Mark Butler has flagged an announcement “in due course’’ about how the new bulk-billing practice incentive payment will be split between practitioners and practices.
Speaking at the AMA’s national conference in Adelaide this morning, Mr Butler doubled-down on his government’s policy of increasing bulk-billing rates across the country, although he did not mention the “nine in 10 practices” target that was so prominent in the election campaign.
“We are unapologetic about leaning into this,” he told the AMA delegates.
“I can’t overstate our determination to make the bulk-billing policies we took to the election work.
“Where there are parts of Australia where there are what we perceive as problems in the market – the ACT is one – we will look at intervening in the market and trying to support some competition that does drive more bulk-billing behaviour.
“We are determined to do this, but we want to work with the AMA and other stakeholders, including on things like the practice incentive payment.”
Mr Butler said he would be making an announcement “in due course” about the outcomes of that stakeholder engagement, particularly in regard to how the PIP would be split between practitioners and practices.
“You shouldn’t be in any doubt about our determination, though, to deliver this commitment,” he said.
The new bulk-billing PIP – aka the BB PIP – will kick off in November alongside the expanded bulk-billing incentives.
Practices will only be able to access the new program by registering with MyMedicare, but they will not be required to register all patients.
As a condition of participating in the program and receiving the 12.5% PIP on MBS billings, practices will be required to advertise that they were part of the program.
Crucially, all GPs at a participating practice will have to agree to bulk bill 100% of GP non-referred attendances.
Mr Butler used his speech to recommit to the four pillars of his government’s health policy which helped win it re-election in May – more bulk billing, more doctors, more urgent care clinics and cheaper medicines.
Medicare urgent care clinics
Mr Butler said he and his government thought Medicare urgent care clinics were “working terrifically well and, frankly, a missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle in Australia’s healthcare system for too long”.
MUCCs had seen about 1.7 million people, he said.
“We are seeing in the hospitals in those catchment areas, their category four, category five presentations at the least, have flattened and usually have started to taper off.
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“That doesn’t mean … hospitals are sitting around twiddling their thumbs, far from it, but taking a little bit of pressure off some of those semi-urgent and non-urgent presentations is making a difference to hospital systems, as well as providing patients, and in many cases, parents, with a much easier, quicker and fully bulk-billed opportunity to get immediate, high-quality care.”
Workforce
Mr Butler cited a record year for having more junior doctors in training as GPs, and the imminent endorsement of rural generalism as a specialty as positive steps in the battle to stem the workforce shortages across the country.
“We’re starting to see seeds of recovery, and I think the policy that we took to the election, bridging that salary gap, bringing leave entitlements to that group of junior doctors, the try-before-you-buy pre-vocational placements, I think is going to continue to make a difference,” he said.
“But we need more medical graduates as well, which is why we are expanding medical school places.”
Cheaper medicines
The government introduced legislation recently to slash the general patient co-contribution down to $25 from 1 January 2026.
“Without those measures, the general patient co-contribution would have topped over $50 next year, so it will be half what otherwise it would have been,” said Mr Butler.
The minister said he was also very proud of the introduction of new contraceptive medications on to the PBS for the first time in 30 years.
“We’ve added the first two new medicines to treat endometriosis for 30 years. We’ve added the first new hormone treatments, three of them that you would prescribe all the time to the PBS for 30 years,” he said.
“Hundreds of thousands of women were using these products and paying market rates.”
Mr Butler reacted with caution to the overnight news out of the US that Australia will maintain its “most favoured nation” status with our tariff on goods exported to the US not increasing from the current 10%.
More concerning, said Mr Butler, was US president Donald Trump’s letter to 17 major pharmaceutical companies, demanding they slash US prescription drug prices to match those paid in countries such as Australia, or risk government intervention.
“This is going to put very significant pressure on medicine systems around the world,” Mr Butler said during his speech to the AMA delegates.
“There will be pressure on the PBS and our medicine system and systems, likely around the world, as we navigate a very different and challenging environment around trade.
“But as we’ve said, we are deeply committed to the PBS. We see it as an utterly core pillar for our healthcare system.
“This is not just a tariff debate, as important as that is to CSL in particular.”
The AMA national conference is being held in Adelaide on 1 and 2 August.
