The proportion of general practitioners in Australia who bulk-bill all of their patients has more than doubled in a year, according to an exclusive report in The Guardian. The report was written by Melissa Davey, the newspaper's medical editor.
Bulk-billing is a practice in which a doctor accepts the Medicare benefit as full payment for a service, so the patient is not charged beyond that amount. The Guardian reported that the increase followed the government's introduction of financial incentives for doctors and practices. According to the report's summary, the findings reflect Medicare investments, and the figures draw on a survey by the RACGP.
The Guardian's headline gives a different measure, stating that almost two-thirds of Australians were bulk-billed for all GP care. The article summary describes the change in terms of general practitioners and their patients, and it breaks off before stating a remaining figure. This account therefore does not report a figure for the share of Australians, and it does not reconcile the headline with the summary.
Experts cautioned, according to the Guardian summary, that "quality of care and outcomes also matter." The summary does not name the experts or describe their objections in detail, and it does not say whether the experts disputed the survey's findings or only the broader policy approach.
The available summary does not include the survey's sample size, its methods, or any time period beyond the one-year comparison it describes. Those details are not contained in the available text and are not reported here.