As we approach the end of the year, it is timely to reflect on the importance of your participation in the statutory Bonded Medical Program (the Program) or one of the legacy schemes (either the Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship Scheme or the Bonded Medical Places Scheme).
The contribution you make – by completing your return of service obligation (RoSO) – is a critical component of the Stronger Rural Health Strategy. This ensures that the Australian trained medical workforce is well-distributed and provides more equitable access to health services in regional, rural and remote communities.
Since May 2021, the department has provided regular newsletters and updates targeted to participants of the Program. These newsletters have provided important information about progress towards resolving cases for individuals affected by implementation issues and later, on Program participant reporting obligations and how to seek assistance. While this does not apply specifically to legacy scheme participants the information is useful for any legacy scheme participant who may consider opting-in to the statutory Bonded Medical Program.
As this is our final newsletter for 2022, we’ll take this opportunity to thank you for your support and patience as we navigated through some complex issues associated with the implementation of the Program. We are pleased to announce that, in coming weeks, we will finalise the remaining cases for individuals that were not correctly bonded.
Further information about the steady progress we have made towards processing the requests of individuals that have expressed their interest to opt-in to the Program are outlined below.
We look forward to finalising this process in the new year and to providing enhanced support to all of our bonded participants.
Bonded Medical Program participant reporting obligations
The Bonded Return of Service System (BRoSS) assists Program participants to plan, monitor and manage their obligations. Program participants are responsible for ensuring their BRoSS record is up-to-date and contains information and evidence relevant to their participation in the Program.
As outlined in Sections 15 & 16 of the Health Insurance (Bonded Medical Program) Rule 2020, Program participants have 3 or 6 months (depending on the event) to log into BRoSS and update your records to meet your reporting obligations.
We have been writing to Program participants regularly since April 2022 to remind you of your reporting obligations to ensure you meet these by the relevant deadlines. We thank you for your efforts to update your BRoSS records and remind you to continue to log into BRoSS regularly to report your key milestones and check/update your details.
The team are here to assist you should you have any questions or concerns regarding your reporting obligations. You can also view our reporting obligations and compliance webinar that covers important information relevant to your participation in the Program.
For further assistance, please contact us at:
1800 987 104 (Monday-Friday, 8:30am-5:00pm AEST) or via email at BondedMedicalProgram@health.gov.au
To help us quickly categorise and address your request, include in the subject line: Bonded Medical Program – [Your name] – Reporting Obligations
We have made great progress to resolve cases for affected individuals
We are excited to announce, by the end of the year, we anticipate that all cases for individuals who were not correctly bonded into the Program will have been resolved. We have already completed 677 of the 722 cases and the remaining 45 are now in the final stages of processing.
This is a huge milestone and we thank the affected individuals for working closely with us to resolve their case in accordance with their individual circumstances.
We have also made good progress to process the requests from individuals who have expressed their interest to opt‑in to the Program. To date, we have allocated 100% of the 1,437 cases and completed 1,207 (or 84.0%). We are actively working with the remaining 230 individuals.
If you are a legacy scheme participant who has started the opt-in process with the department, there may be an email sitting in your inbox waiting to be actioned. Please check your emails and respond to the department to facilitate completion of this process.
If you have changed your email contact details, phone number or postal address and not advised the department, please do so as soon as possible using the email address above.
Happy holidays
All of the staff at the department wish you all the best for a happy and safe holiday period.
Please note that the department will close briefly from 3:00pm on Friday 23 December 2022, resuming normal operations from Tuesday 3 January 2023.
We look forward to supporting you in the new year.