But there are still questions around how the incentive will be split between practices and GPs and how it impacts accreditation.
Hot on the heels of Tuesday night’s federal budget, more details of the Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Payments scheme have been released – but there are still important questions to be answered.
The Department of Health and Aged Care has revealed that while general practices will need to be registered for the program, they won’t need to be officially accredited to access the payments.
How this will work is yet to be ironed out, according to the FAQs document for practices and providers handed out by DoHAC with the latest round of communications yesterday.
“Practices already registered in MyMedicare must meet the existing MyMedicare accreditation requirements. There is an accreditation exemption is currently available until 31 December 2026 for non-accredited practices (including sole providers) who deliver general practice services entirely through mobile and outreach models,” DoHAC says in the document.
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“Practices that are not already registered in MyMedicare will have the MyMedicare accreditation requirements waived if they wish to register with MyMedicare and participate the program.
“Further information regarding MyMedicare accreditation requirements and exemptions will be released later this year.”
RACGP vice-president Dr Ramya Raman told The Medical Republic the details of the program need more fine tuning to allow GPs and practices to make their own decisions about whether they want to be involved.
She said how the 12.5% was split between GPs and practices was an important issue to have clarity around.
“We do need to understand what that actually means, and what it means in terms of numbers as well, because as we do know with general practice, the majority of the GPs are contractors or tenant GPS, so it will be important,” said Dr Raman.
“But we don’t know that detail at this point in time. We are in conversation with them [the government] and now coming into a federal election as well we will also be talking to the other side.”
The 12.5% loading payment for Medicare items is a cornerstone of the federal government plan to boost the number of fully bulk-billing practices to about 4800 by 2029, along with extending tripled bulk-billing incentives to all patients.
For a typical practice with five doctors, this could mean an additional $200,000 per year. The first payments will be made through Services Australia in early 2026, based on quarterly data from Medicare claims.
Under the new bulk billing PIP, from 1 November practices participating in the program will receive an additional 12.5% incentive payment on every $1 of MBS benefit earned from eligible services, split between the GP and the practice.
The program is voluntary and allows practices to opt in or out at any time.
“Participating practices must bulk bill every eligible service for every patient, to receive the incentive payment. This incentive payment will be in addition to MBS Benefits paid (including bulk billing incentives),” said the DoHAC.
To participate in the program, practices will need to bulk bill all eligible services; advertise their participation in the program; and be MyMedicare registered. Practices that are not already MyMedicare registered and want to participate in the program will be exempt from MyMedicare accreditation requirements, DoHAC says.
To register in the program, practices will need to register to participate in MyMedicare and register to participate in the program via MyMedicare. Registration opens on 1 November.
“Further details and instructions on how to register in the Program will be provided later this year,” the department says.
The payment will not apply to all services provided by general practice. See below for the eligible item numbers. The list is also available here.
