The New South Wales Government has announced that its $189 million Bulk-Billing Support Initiative is now active, helping to keep visits to the GP accessible for families.
Introduced in the 2024-25 New South Wales Budget, the program protects bulk-billing for people needing a GP and reduces the strain on emergency departments. It is the first time the State Government has made a direct intervention to protect bulk-billing rates.
The package provides a new, ongoing payroll rebate to clinics for contractor GPs that meet the bulk-billing thresholds of 80 per cent of services in metropolitan Sydney, and 70 per cent in the rest of New South Wales.
Clinics will also benefit from the waiving of $104 million of historical payroll tax liabilities.
There are more than 2,300 GP clinics across New South Wales. NSW Health estimates that a one per cent decrease in bulk-billing equates to around 3,000 additional emergency presentations.
For large clinic networks like ForHealth, with 37 clinics across New South Wales, the Bulk-Billing Support Initiative will enable them to continue to serve their communities and keep bulk-billing rates high. ForHealth bulk-bills roughly five million patient visits each year around Australia, 2.5 million of which are in New South Wales. They are the largest bulk-biller in the country.
GP clinics in metropolitan Sydney must bulk-bill at least 80 per cent of their patient services to be eligible for the ongoing payroll tax rebates. For GP clinics outside of metropolitan Sydney, a lower bulk-billing rate threshold of 70 per cent applies to ensure broader access to the initiative.
Since the announcement in June, Revenue NSW, the AMA and RACGP were engaged in a specially formed working group to develop a practice note to assist clinics, their accountants and legal advisors.
Following these discussions, Revenue NSW released a comprehensive list of LGAs and suburbs in New South Wales where the 80 per cent threshold is applied, as well as the Commissioner’s Practice Note and a flow-chart to assist clinics.
Previously, the AMA’s Dr Michael Bonning said of the Bulk-Billing Support Initiative that: “Legislating ‘no retrospectivity’ will provide certainty for practices and will minimise the risk of more closures of general practices in New South Wales.”
With this Initiative, the State Government is working to keep GP clinics open and appointments bulk-billed for families and households amid the cost-of-living crisis, while also reducing the strain on emergency departments.
New South Wales Minister for Health, Ryan Park, said that with GPs becoming more difficult to access, people are either putting off seeing a doctor and allowing their conditions to deteriorate, or they are presenting to hospitals with non-urgent conditions.
“The lack of GP access is having severe impacts on our emergency departments,” Minister Park said.
“The Bulk-Billing Support Initiative will stem declining bulk-billing rates, and foster greater access to GPs, and in turn, relieve pressure on our busy hospitals.”
New South Wales Minister for Finance, Courtney Houssos, said that the Bulk-Billing Support Initiative comes after extensive consultation and cooperation with the peak-bodies to deliver a solution that alleviated financial stress for GP clinics and delivered real cost-of-living relief for families.
“This is the first-time the New South Wales Government is making a strategic investment to support bulk-billing rates and protect family budgets,” Minister Houssos said.
ForHealth CEO, Andrew Cohen, said that ForHealth understands how important access is in healthcare, especially in the current economic context.
“We are proud to be one of the largest bulk-billing general practice providers in New South Wales with roughly 2.5 million bulk-billed patient visits each year,” Mr Cohen said.
“This initiative from the New South Wales Government will help protect bulk billing accessibility at clinics like ours, throughout outer metropolitan and regional New South Wales. In many of these practices we are expecting the level of bulk-billing to increase as a result.
“The removal of any retrospective payroll tax liability for all medical centres is a weight off the shoulders of the industry as clinics will no longer be at risk of closure due to large historic tax bills.”
Image: Rose Marinelli/shutterstock.com
