The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing originally predicted it would take another 18 months for more than 3600 GP clinics to sign up for the bulk-billing practice incentive.
Some 3700 GP practices have committed to 100% bulk billing in the five months since the bulk-billing PIP was introduced, putting the government on track to reach 90% GP bulk billing by 2030.
Federal health minister Mark Butler announced on Friday that the number of practices signed up to the BB PIP had surpassed the 3700-practice milestone just shy of two years ahead of schedule; DoHDA modelling originally predicted the program would not hit 3600 sign-ups until late 2027.
It’s worth noting that the number of practices which signed up to the BB PIP had already reached 3251 at the end of December 2025.
That puts the number of clinics which signed up between 1 January 2026 and 10 April 2026 at around 450 – or around 150 new clinics signing up per month.
To reach the DoHDA’s stated goal of having 75% of GP practices registered for the BB PIP by 2030, it needs a total of 4800 practices registered.
That’s another 1100 on top of the clinics which have already registered.
If practices continue to sign up to the BB PIP at the current rate of 150 per month – which is, admittedly, somewhat unlikely – the department would reach its goal by the end of 2026.
Assuming that the rate of 150 new sign-ups per month is unsustainable, the government has 43 months left until its self-imposed January 2030 deadline of 4800 practices.
If just 26 new practices signed up each month the DoHDA would still meet the 2030 goal.
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According to Mr Butler, 1400 of the 3700 BB PIP practices were previously mixed-billing clinics.
“We have been clear that this is a significant investment,” he said.
“I said at the time that the money we were putting in through this investment, which is around $8 billion over four years, was also the same amount of money that the Australian Medical Association says was effectively ripped out of general practice through that long period where the Medicare rebate was frozen under the former government.
“Yes, this is an investment, but … there’s nothing more important than your health as an individual, and from my perspective, there’s nothing more important for the nation than the health of the community more broadly. This is a strong investment but an important one.”
Practices which sign up to the BB PIP must commit to having all GPs bulk bill all GP non-referred MBS items, as well as registering as a bulk-billing practice on Healthdirect and displaying mandatory government signage.
In return, the practices received a quarterly incentive payment equal to 12.5% of the MBS benefits paid from eligible services. Half goes directly to the practice and half goes directly to the GP.
So far, only the first quarterly payment has been delivered. Participating practices received an average of about $21,000.
It is likely that subsequent payments will be higher, because the incentive started one month into the December quarter.
