New phone items for chronic condition management plans and a new Healthy Kids Check for three-year-olds arrive on the MBS.
Here are all the changes coming to Medicare items for GPs, commencing on Sunday 1 November 2026.
Healthy Kids Check
From 1 November, a new MBS health assessment – the Medicare Health Kids Check – will be introduced for 3-year-old children. GPs can carry out the checks under the time-tiered health assessment items 701-707, while prescribed medical practitioners (PMPs) can use items 224-227.
It forms part of the Government’s Thriving Kids initiative, recommended by the Thriving Kids Advisory Group to improve early identification of neurodevelopmental differences or developmental delays in children. It is available once per child.
The assessment must include a patient’s history, spanning developmental milestones, social circumstances, behaviour and wellbeing, nutrition, screen use, sleep and toileting.
Related
It must also include a basic physical exam, including but not limited to vision, hearing, oral health, growth and BMI; advice for parents or carers; monitoring; interventions or referrals to appropriate supports if needed; a medical record entry; and an offer of a written report.
For children of other ages, or three-year-olds needing further assessment, GPs can continue billing under standard time-tiered attendances.
Chronic Condition Management
GPs and PMPs will also have access to four new phone attendance items – 92033, 92034, 92063, and 92064 – to prepare or review a patient’s chronic condition management plan.
Patients must be registered with MyMedicare, and the GP must work at the practice where the patient is registered.
The reform comes as MyMedicare registrations surge. Patient registrations more than doubled between 2024-25 and 2025-26, reaching 6.5 million, according to the Services Australia annual report.
7600 GP clinics now participating in the voluntary patient enrolment scheme.
Telehealth face-to-face rule exemptions apply to patients experiencing homelessness, patients seen by a medical practitioner at an ACCHO, or people living in a natural disaster-affected area.
Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring
Children and teenagers aged 5 to under 18 will be eligible for the 24-hour blood pressure monitoring item 11607 if their systolic or diastolic blood pressure falls between the 95th percentile and the 95th percentile plus 30mmHg, using age, sex, and height-appropriate limits.
The service must include preparing a report and developing a treatment plan.
Other MBS changes arriving 1 November include:
- Participating nurse practitioners will be able to refer patients for DEXA scans under items 12306 and 12322
- Immunomodulating treatment item 14245 can be provided by a qualified health practitioner on behalf of a prescribing medical practitioner
- “Residential aged care facility” will be amended to “residential care home”
- The definitions of “eligible Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health worker” and “health professional” will be expanded for services relating to item 73813 – the detection of chlamydia, gonorrhoea and trichomonas
- Patients with moderate to severe focal spasticity due to a previously diagnosed neurological disorder will now have access to a third pharmaceutical option (Xeomin) under item 18360
For more information about the full list of MBS amendments, see here.
