Press conference with Minister Butler, Adelaide – 15 August 2025

MATT BURNELL MP, MEMBER FOR SPENCE: It’s great to be here at the Elizabeth Medical and Dental Care Centre, right here in the heart of the electorate of Spence. In the lead-up to the election, we made a commitment to the Australian people that we were going to put care back into Medicare, building on the work that we’ve started on our election in 2022. This centre here was the start of the Urgent Care Clinic process for people in the Northern Suburbs, delivering state-of-the-art care for people when they need it. This centre has come along leaps and bounds and been providing fantastic care for many, many people across my community and beyond. To build on that today, I’m going to hand over to my good friend, Mark Butler, the Minister for Health, to make a really key announcement. Thank you.
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Thanks, Matt, so much, and to Andrew and Carolyn for hosting us here today at the Elizabeth Centre, one of the 87 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics we opened during the last term of Parliament. As Matt said, we went to the last election a few months ago promising to do even more work Strengthening Medicare – more bulk billing, more doctors and nurses, more Urgent Care Clinics and even cheaper medicines. And since we were given the chance by the Australian people to govern for another term, we’ve been busy implementing those promises. We already have legislation in the Parliament to make medicines even cheaper. They’ll bring the maximum anyone pays for a PBS script down to $25 from 1 January, which is the same price it was back in 2004. We’re also already starting the process of rolling out the 50 additional Medicare Urgent Care Clinics we promised at the last election – three of them I’ve already opened in Victoria. This week, we opened expressions of interest for clinics in rural South Australia. I think about half of the 50 already have an expression of interest process open. The rest will be opened over the course of the next several days or couple of weeks. I've said I'd like to see as many of them open as possible by Christmas, but certainly they'll all be open over the course of this financial year, so by the middle of next year at the absolute latest.
 
But the centrepiece of our commitment to Strengthening Medicare lies in bulk billing, because bulk billing for the Labor Party is the beating heart of Medicare. The investments we made during the last term of Parliament turned bulk billing around for people with a concession card, including pensioners and for kids under 16. That bulk billing rate for those Australians is now again comfortably over 90 per cent. But the bulk billing rate for people who don't have a concession card has continued to slide. Many of those Australians are not on great incomes because the concession card kicks out at about $40,000 a year. We're determined to turn bulk billing around for those Australians as well, which is why the Prime Minister promised in February that if we were re-elected, bulk billing incentives to general practice would be extended to every Australian, not just to those with a concession card, and that new funding will come into effect from 1 November. We're committed to turning that bulk billing rate around for those Australians to get it back up to 90 per cent by the end of this decade as well.
 
We're not just extending the bulk billing incentives to general practice who look after all of those Australians. We're also going to pay a new incentive for GPs and general practices if they become full bulk billing clinics. We think around a quarter of general practices in Australia right now bulk bill everyone who comes through their doors for GP consults. We think the investments we announced in February can increase that rate from a quarter to fully three quarters, because those practices will be better off. And today, I'm announcing that the additional incentive payment of 12.5 per cent additional loading on top of their Medicare income will be split evenly between individual doctors at a practice like this and the practice itself. We think that is the right balance. Individual doctors should be rewarded for taking a decision to bulk bill every patient that they see, but also we need to make this work for the practice themselves. We think, although there have been arguments made to us that doctors should get all of the money or the practices should get all of the money, we think striking the balance that the money is split evenly between those doctors and the practices is the right decision. This is just another step in implementing our Strengthening Medicare agenda. There's nothing more important to a Labor Government than making sure we have a strong Medicare for all Australians.
 
I want to thank Andrew and Carolyn for having us here today, for their input into what the program should look like as we move forward and their commitment to Urgent Care Clinics like this one, but others around the country, and to bulk billing as a core part of the way in which they deliver terrific health services as well. I'll hand over to Andrew now.
 
ANDREW COHEN, CEO, FORHEALTH: My name is Andrew Cohen, I'm the CEO of ForHealth, and I'm joined by Dr Carolyn Roesler, our clinical director and a GP here in Elizabeth. ForHealth is the largest bulk billing general practice provider in the country. We serve more than 8 million patient visits a year, and our mission is really around universal health and access, particularly in health vulnerable communities, low socioeconomic communities like this one where we are in Elizabeth today. It's in this context that we're really excited to have the Minister and our local member, Matt Burnell, here today, and to also commit to moving to 100 per cent bulk billing at this centre in Elizabeth from 1 November. That's a change that is only made possible and is a direct result of the Albanese Government's record $8.5 billion investment in Medicare and in bulk billing. For our network, it means that almost eight out of every 10, probably about 70 clinics, will transition to 100 per cent bulk billing by 1 November. What that really means for us, which is really important, is that a career as a bulk billing GP will be as attractive, if not more attractive, than a career as a private billing GP. But most importantly, I think for our patients, it means that during difficult cost of living times, they are going to get a great benefit directly, but also there will be no financial barriers to their healthcare. I think this is a real vote of confidence from the Albanese Government in Medicare and in bulk billing, and for that bold agenda I commend them and thank them on behalf of communities like Elizabeth.
 
CAROLYN ROESLER, FORHEALTH CLINICAL DIRECTOR: I think we are all, as GPs and certainly in the urgent care space, very excited. We know this is an area of rapid growth. We have increasing pockets of elderly and very young families. When working in urgent care, which I am today, I'm always confronted by people that have not been able to avail medical care at a time of need. And we know in the hospital systems here, which are obviously experiencing excessive demand, we know it's a direct relationship between just not having the money to go and see a GP. As a really multi-disciplinary practice, we service the community well, and I think we're all excited about being able to do that health promotion and screening and get Australians, and especially this cohort of disadvantaged communities, back to having optimal health and wellbeing. We really appreciate obviously, the opportunity and we're excited for November 1, so thank you.
 
JOURNALIST: And just quickly, sorry, working in a clinic like this, do you think having the 100 per cent bulk billing, are more people actually going to come in and get things checked out rather than diseases or sicknesses kind of going under the radar because they just can't afford to get it checked?
 
ROESLER: Absolutely. It's been really hard to watch. I've been in this area a long time, and I've definitely seen that decline. We will see people be able to come in and not hold off, and that's what we're seeing. Even post-COVID, people have held off even longer, so obviously then, diseases warrant and require hospitalisation. It's definitely going to bring people back to general practice, which is great.
 
JOURNALIST: Have you seen more people going to, when they come in and see you, if they do say, I went to ED or I went to hospital because I can't afford to come here?
 
ROESLER: Absolutely. I would say a good 70 to 80 per cent of our weekend patient load in urgent care is because that inability to access care. Patients are apologetic, which is really, really confronting when they're actually apologising and they want to see a GP. It's even difficult when they don't have GP access to provide that follow-on care, which is critical.
 
JOURNALIST: Just for the Minister. Obviously, last month's ramping was the worst it's ever been in SA. I guess how important are these clinics to hopefully putting some ease on our hospital system?
 
BUTLER: Right around the country, it's no surprise there's particular pressure on hospital systems right now, as you see that spike in respiratory illnesses during winter. And I know hospital systems in every state really are trying to manage that pressure. What we're trying to do as the Commonwealth in assisting them is really a number of things. Firstly, we're providing them with a lot more money to run their hospitals so that they can staff them properly. Here in South Australia, for example, hospital funding this financial year is up 15 per cent, which will be the biggest increase in hospital funding, I suspect, ever between the Commonwealth and South Australia. But we're also building these clinics, these Urgent Care Clinics, to take that pressure off the front door of the hospitals in the first place. People who need to be seen urgently but don't need a fully equipped hospital, they’re able to come to a clinic like this that's open seven days a week, extended hours, provides very high quality care, and importantly, is fully bulk billed, so there's not a financial reason to end up at the emergency department either.
 
JOURNALIST: You touched on it before, but why is the full amount not going to GPs if you're splitting it? You sort of touched on it before, but what's the why behind it?
 
BUTLER: We need this to be in the interest of everyone involved. Obviously, individual GPs, we want them to make the decision to bulk bill their patients that are coming into their consulting rooms. But the practice itself, which is often a collection of GPs and sometimes an entity like ForHealth, they need to crunch their numbers and see that this is in their interest as well. That's why we designed the program the way we did. We're not just sort of plucking a number out of thin air. We modelled this very carefully. We have great access to what practices are currently doing in terms of their billing, and we're confident that the money we put on the table in February means that three quarters of practices will be better off financially if they move to a full bulk billing model. Now, that really requires doctors, individual doctors, to buy into this but also practice owners to buy into it as well, which is why we've gone with the idea or the decision to split the incentive evenly.
 
JOURNALIST: Has there been discussion around if we're now putting people or trying to get people out of the ED and to clinics, if the staffing levels and obviously attracting more doctors to clinics, how are we going to balance that if we've got more people working out of the ED into these practices?
 
BUTLER: This is a new model of care for Australia. It's pretty common in many other countries we compare ourselves to. Over the ditch in New Zealand, they've had this model in place now for a couple of decades, which means that their presentation numbers to their hospital emergency departments are very significantly lower than here in Australia. We know the model works, but we're also evaluating the model as we go. We've got an evaluation underway of this new program to make sure that if we need to make tweaks to it to make sure it's the most effective it can be, then obviously, we'll do that. I'm convinced this is the right decision to roll out this network. If we need to tweak the way in which it’s staffed, for example, then of course we'll do that over time. Already though, it's seen over 1.7 million patients, this network across the country of 87 clinics. Many of whom, perhaps the majority of whom, would otherwise have had to go to the hospital emergency department. I know this is taking pressure off that front door of emergency departments in areas like this.
 
JOURNALIST: How great is it going to be for those rural communities once these urgent care centres are built? I know obviously it's hard enough to get healthcare out there, let alone bulk build healthcare.
 
BUTLER: That's right. We're doing everything we can to ensure that rural communities have access to the terrific quality healthcare that we take for granted often in our cities. We've got incentives in place for doctors to move out to the bush and to practice there. Bulk billing incentives are higher in the bush than they are in the major cities. It's even more financially attractive to move to a bulk billing model the further away you get from the major cities. Obviously we are, as you say, committed to rolling out Urgent Care Clinics in rural Australia as much as we are in the big cities.
 
JOURNALIST: Will this apply to telehealth appointments or digital appointments as well, or is it just in the clinics the bulk billing incentives?
 
BUTLER: The range of services that are covered by the bulk billing incentives will be rolled out and made very clear to practices.
 
JOURNALIST: So it won't include telehealth?

BUTLER: Telehealth has bulk billing incentives applied to it depending on the type of consult it is, but a GP consult is. Thanks, everyone.