More than 1250 mixed billing practices have now converted to universal bulk billing, according to Department of Health, Disability and Ageing figures.
Health minister Mark Butler has cleared the first hurdle in his efforts to bring GP non-referred bulk billing up to 90% by 2030 – but bulk billing is still yet to reach pre-pandemic levels.
Data released on Wednesday morning by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing provides the first insight into bulk billing since the extended bulk billing incentive and the bulk billing PIP went live in November 2025.
The top-line figure is that the national GP non-referred bulk billing rate averaged 81.4% between November 2024 and January 2026, a rise of 3.8 percentage points on the 2025 September quarter average.
Mr Butler claims that the jump to 81.4% represents the largest quarterly increase in bulk billing in the last 20 years, outside of the covid pandemic.
The GP quarterly bulk billing rate has not risen above 80% since the tail end of the pandemic vaccine rollout in the December quarter of 2022.
Prior to the pandemic, though, the bulk billing rate had reliably sat at around 85% for several years; the current rate of 81.4%, while representing an impressive quarter-on-quarter increase, is still notably less than 85%.
The latest figures also reveal that 1269 of the 3412 practices registered for the bulk billing PIP were previously mixed billing locations.
Grattan Institute health program director Peter Breadon noted that Mr Butler has suggested that the number of practices participating in the BB PIP program was continuing to grow.
“That might suggest that the increase might continue – but really it’s too early to tell,” he told The Medical Republic.
“Clearly, the bulk billing rate shot up after the introduction of the new incentives, and then stayed relatively stable at just above 81% so … I think it’s possible to continue to see the rate rise but it’s a bit early to tell.”
Bulk billing statistics covering the November to January period were not the only Medicare statistics to be released on Wednesday; the department also dropped the total Medicare dataset for October to December 2025.
Because this second tranche only captures data from the two months after the bulk billing incentives went live but is averaged over a three-month time period, these numbers are slightly lower than those from Butler’s other release.
One interesting development that the December quarter dataset does reveal, though, is that the average patient contribution per service has risen to $51.11 from $50.49, despite having shrunk quarter-on-quarter for the three preceding time periods.
Mr Breadon said an initial look at the data indicated that this figure was continuing to rise due to inflation.
“Just because the bulk billing rate goes up doesn’t mean that fees necessarily go down,” he said.
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“And fees have been going up pretty consistently in recent years, so it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.
“In terms of the incentives on clinics, there is an incentive to go 100% bulk billing … but it doesn’t prevent the GPs from increasing fees if they don’t go into that 100% category.”
Mr Breadon also noted that the bulk billing rate has increased more in non-metro and rural regions.
In MM3 regions, for instance, the GP MBS bulk billing rate rose from 80.5% for the September quarter to 83.9% for the December quarter, an increase of 3.4 percentage points.
Meanwhile, MM1 areas went from 76.9% to 79.0%, or an increase of 2.1 percentage points.
“That makes sense, because the bulk billing incentive, of course, goes up as you get more remote,” Mr Breadon said.
“And so you should see the biggest impact outside cities. And I think that’s probably what we’ve seen.”
