Welcome to October.
Today marks the go-live date for several key government programs.
Here’s where general practice will feel the impacts.
Card surcharges
From 1 October, businesses are no longer allowed to include a surcharge for payments by credit card.
Payment terminals from providers like Tyro will simply stop displaying an option to add a merchant fee to transactions.
Unfortunately, the ban on surcharges for customers does not stop card networks like Mastercard or Visa from imposing fees on the business; practices will still be paying an additional cost when accepting card over cash.
Businesses are prohibited from simply changing the name of the merchant fee. Any fee which applies to card payments only will be penalised.
For a regular general practice, accountant David Dahm estimated that the card and platform fee for one GP would add up to between $2000 and $5000 per year.
What businesses like general practices could do instead, to cover the loss, would be to increase their fees overall.
Thriving Kids
The first stage of the new Thriving Kids program also went live as of 1 October – but GPs won’t have access to the new Healthy Kids Check MBS item for another month.
With the rollout planned to take place gradually through to 1 January 2028, the program currently does not consist of much.
Today’s additions were the publication of the Thriving Kids Information and Resource Hub website and the launch of the Thriving Kids Autism Helpline.
The website includes written resources on autism, ADHD and children with disability.
The phone helpline, which can be accessed on 1300 654 789, will provide autism-specific information and guidance to relevant support services. It will only operate between 9am and 7pm on weekdays.
Related
“Today marks the gradual rollout of Thriving Kids services, and the launch of the new digital hub and national autism phone support service will give families an easy place to start – whether they just have questions about their child’s development or are ready to find practical support,” NDIS minister Jenny McAllister said.
“Importantly, the way people access support under the National Disability Insurance Scheme will not change until full Thriving Kids services are rolled out in January 2028.”
Nurse prescribing
October 1 was also meant to mark the onset of designated registered nurse prescribers being allowed to write PBS-eligible scripts for certain medicines.
On a legislative level, this still holds.
Today marks the commencement of federal regulatory and legislative arrangements enabling designated RNs to become authorised nurse prescribers.
Nurses with general registration who have at least 5000 hours of clinical experience, have completed additional study and been endorsed as a prescriber by the nursing and midwifery board can now apply with Services Australia to obtain an authorised nurse prescriber PBS prescriber number.
What’s missing, though, is the ability for these new PBS prescribers to actually use the PBS.
“Authorised nurse prescribers can only prescribe PBS medicines when the PBS Schedule is updated to include the medicines they are allowed to prescribe,” a Services Australia booklet dated October 2026 reads.
It linked to the PBS website for more information. If the PBS website did have more information, it was not immediately obvious.
A communique from the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing published last month clarified that it had not allowed sufficient time for vendors to conduct testing before the go-live date.
“The government acknowledges that the time and resources required to conduct fulsome testing is highly dependent on individual vendor commitments, architectures, implementation roadmaps,” it said.
“Authorised nurse prescribing of PBS medicines will be permitted from 1 December 2026. To enable these prescriptions to be used the support of dispensing vendors as well as prescribing vendors is critical to support this timeline.”
My Health Record privacy
The grace period to comply with new privacy regulations for the My Health Record finished on 1 October.
GPs and practices should now have additional policies outlining the procedures for: creating and modifying user accounts, suspending or deactivating accounts, data breach obligations and cybersecurity measures.
There are also new requirements about the accessibility of each organisation’s MHR policies and procedures.
Staff are also now required to do yearly refresher training.
