Bulk Billing Explained

You will find some areas where most doctors will Bulk Bill, and other areas where few doctors will bulk bill.

When we were in the cheaper areas of Western Sydney, almost all doctors bulk billed, but in the more expensive areas, very few doctors would consider it.

Due to recent legislation, we are now finding that more doctors are bulk billing for Children and pensioners, due to financial incentives from the government for the Doctors to do this,

In essence when someone visits a Doctor, the Government will pay the "Scheduled Fee" for such a visit. Lets say that is $27.00

If a Doctor fully bulk bills, they will not charge you, but they will get paid that sum of $27 direct from the Government.

Some Doctors wish to charge, say $35. so one of two things happens:

1: The doctor will charge you $35, and YOU claim the $27 back from the local Medicare Office. Net cost to you = $8

2: The doctor collects $8 from you, and gets you to sign the medicare benefit over to them, so they claim the $27 from Medicare. Net cost is the same.

This difference is called "A Gap"
More very recent legislation is putting a limit on the maximum "Gap" that you have to pay each year. ie: Once you have paid a certain figure, Medicare will step in again, and repay more of the doctors bill to you. I don't have full details to hand.

Public Hospitals don't charge anything, and sometimes even give you free medicine !!

In the September quarter 2005, 71.1 per cent of services under Medicare were bulk billed.

74.9 per cent of non-referred (GP) attendances were bulk billed.

The volume of services bulk billed in the September quarter 2005 was 45.4 million services.

The highest bulk billig rate was for "Enhanced Primary Care" at 98.3%

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/pub...-analysis-b-per