The official GP non-referred bulk billing rate for the June quarter of this financial year was 84.1%, the closest it has ever come to regular pre-covid levels.
Health minister Mark Butler might just live to see his goal of 90% GP bulk billing after all, with new Medicare data placing the GP non-referred bulk billing rate at 84.1% at the end of the June quarter.
It’s an increase of 2.2 percentage points on the previous quarter, and a total increase of 4.9 percentage points on the June quarter of the 2024-25 financial year.
Two big changes came into effect in October 2025; the bulk billing incentives were extended to all Australians rather than just those with concession cards, and the bulk billing PIP program went live.
The age cohort which saw the largest rate of growth between June 2025 and June 2026 was patients aged between 16 and 64 years; it is now at 78.6%.
Typically, this cohort tends to have a smaller proportion of people who are eligible for concession cards and as a result the bulk billing rate has traditionally been lower than the under-16 and over-65 age groups.
Mr Butler claimed that the bulk billing rate for pensioners and concession card holders was now “comfortably over” 93%.
“… The latest bulk billing data that shows that we’re making great progress in our target to reach a bulk billing rate by the end of this decade of 90 per cent,” Mr Butler said.
The 84.1% figure, of course, only represents bulk billing rates for April, May and June 2026.
The bulk billing rate for the 2025-26 financial year, in full, is 80.9%; critically, this includes the bulk billing rates for several months before the October reforms came into effect.
It’s an improvement of 3 percentage points on the 2024-25 financial year.
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While fewer patients are paying out-of-pocket, the average out-of-pocket fee is also going up. It increased from $49.14 at the end the 2024-25 financial year to $55.25 at the end of the 2025-26 financial year.
One potential explanation for this is that GPs who were previously charging smaller out-of-pocket fees were incentivised to switch to universal bulk billing or were able to bulk bill more patients due to the expanded incentives, skewing the mean out-of-pocket cost upward.
Another potential explanation is simply that GPs are putting costs up.
Across the country, the Primary Health Network region with the highest GP bulk billing rate was South Western Sydney, where 95.8% of patients were bulk billed.
The lowest was the ACT, at 54.5%. The ACT also held onto the dubious title of lowest bulk billing jurisdiction in Australia.
The Northern Territory was the region with the highest bulk billing rate, at 85.8% for the 2025-26 year, followed closely by NSW and Victoria.
WA is now the second-lowest bulk biller, at 73.2%, trailing even Tasmania, which ended the year with a 76.8% bulk billing rate.
