Despite keeping a hawk-like focus on minute changes in the bulk billing rate earlier this year, Canberra has been quiet on the latest quarterly figures.
New Medicare statistics reveal that while the GP bulk billing rate has increased for the third quarter in a row, it is still exactly equal to the same time period in 2023.
The figures put the GP non-referred attendance bulk billing rate at 78.8% for the June 2024 quarter, an increase of 1.7 percentage points on the March 2024 quarter and 2.3 percentage points on the December quarter.
It’s the third quarter-on-quarter rise for the bulk billing rate, which had dropped to 75.6% in the month before the bulk billing incentive was tripled.
Health Minister Mark Butler has been praising the rise in bulk billing rates during recent media appearances; in a radio interview on Monday, he used the phrase “green shoots” no less than four times.
“Data shows there has been over three million additional bulk billed visits since the Albanese Government tripled the bulk billing incentive, with around 900,000 additional bulk billed GP visits in May and a further 900,000 additional bulk billed visits in June,” he told The Medical Republic.
“This year’s increase to Medicare rebates is the second largest increase in the past 30 years, the largest increase was last year.”
The one hitch is that the bulk billing rate for the 2023 June quarter, before the introduction of the tripled incentive, was also 78.8%.
While there is no longer a steep decline in bulk billing – according to the minister’s office, the rate declined month-on-month between July and October 2023 but has increased month-on-month six out of eight times since – the same proportion of services were bulk billed over the same time period this year.
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Broken down over the larger timeframe of the year to date, the national GP bulk billing rate was 77.3% at the 2024 June quarter, compared to 80.2% for 2023.
Southwest Sydney remains the highest bulk billing region at 94% for the year to date, while Canberra took out the dubious title of lowest bulk billing region at 52.9%.
Chronic disease and complex care appointments were the most frequently bulk billed services, while the average out-of-pocket patient cost of a level B appointment was $41.36.
