Update on changes to the Bonded Medical Program

Changes to Part VD of the Health Insurance Act 1973

Removal of financial penalty for students who withdraw

If you withdraw or are discontinued from your medical course at an Australian university, you do not have to repay your Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP) debt. 

Implemented

We have updated our processes and will not invoice students who do not complete their medical course. If you withdraw from your medical course you must log into BRoSS and action your withdrawal so the system notifies us. For more information on withdrawing from the Program please visit our website or see the BRoSS Participant Guide – Withdrawing as a student for step-by-step instructions.

Due to high query volumes, there may be delays in finalising your withdrawal request. We appreciate your prompt action and thank you for your patience.

Removal of the 6-year Medicare ban

If you are a former Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship (MRBS) scheme participant, you will no longer face the 6-year Medicare ban if you withdraw from the Program or do not complete your RoSO within 18 years of graduating from your medical school course. However, you will still need to repay the cost of your scholarship.

Implemented

We have changed our processes so that the Medicare ban no longer applies for former MRBS participants who withdraw or breach their agreement.

If you’re thinking about withdrawing, you can check your estimated repayment in BRoSS. Go to ‘Manage my agreement’ on your dashboard, select ‘Withdraw from the Program’ and download the MRBS repayment estimate PDF. BRoSS calculates the amount based on your RoSO activity up to your withdrawal date. If a new estimate is requested BRoSS will automatically display the re-estimated amount.

Changes to the Bonded Medical Program Rule

Removal of the Fellowship requirement

Previously, as a Program participant, you had to complete at least half of your RoSO after becoming a Fellow or when you commenced the 13th year of your 18 year period, whichever occurred first. We have removed this requirement. You can now complete all your RoSO as soon as you become a medical practitioner.

Implemented

BRoSS has now been updated to reflect this legislative change. You can now complete all your RoSO as soon as you become a medical practitioner. Any eligible work you have completed before becoming a Fellow will now count towards your 156 week obligation and BRoSS will automatically recalculate and show this work in the progress bar.

Next steps

1. log into BRoSS
2. review your record and confirm your phase is correct to enable BRoSS to accurately assess your location eligibility
3. review your RoSO history and update as needed.

If your progress bar shows that you have achieved 156 weeks, BRoSS will immediately notify us. There is no need to contact us separately via email. If you are eligible for Program completion, we will email you confirming you have met your obligations and are no longer a Program participant.

For more information see our BRoSS Participant Guide - RoSO. This section of the guide includes information about how to enter, activate and complete a RoSO event. 

You must use BRoSS to confirm location eligibility. BRoSS will advise you immediately if the location is eligible while accounting for your individual circumstances.

Notifiable events

You now need to provide evidence for fewer career milestones – we have reduced the number from 10 to 6. We have also updated evidence requirements for notifiable events.

Implemented

We have updated the notification emails to better support you in managing your RoSO. Notifications about Ahpra registration have been removed, and updates made to RoSO reporting notifications, including reminders to enter RoSO plans if you completed your medical course more than 10 years ago. 

More updates to Notifiable Event emails are expected later this year. Until then, please disregard notifications for Notifiable Events that no longer apply. For current requirements, refer to section 15 and 16 of the Health Insurance (Bonded Medical Program) Rule 2020.

Removing time limits for RoSO reporting

Restrictions in BRoSS preventing participants from entering RoSO events that commenced more than 6 months ago were removed.

Implemented

Previously, BRoSS prevented you from entering RoSO if the start date was more than 6 months ago. Now, you can enter and manage RoSO commenced at any time since you became a program participant.

To enter outstanding or retrospective work:

1. log in to BRoSS
2. review your record and confirm your phase is correct to enable BRoSS to accurately assess your location eligibility
3. review your RoSO history and update as needed.

You must use BRoSS to confirm location eligibility. BRoSS will advise you immediately if the location is eligible while accounting for your individual circumstances.

Work completed as a Bonded Medical Places Scheme or MRBS Scheme participant

If you previously took part in the Bonded Medical Places (BMP) Scheme or MRBS Scheme and completed Program compliant work, you can now submit evidence to have this work count towards your RoSO.

In progress – submit your evidence

Any work you completed before entering the Program must be added to BRoSS by our team. You can send us your evidence now, but because we receive a high volume of emails, it may take months before your BRoSS record is updated.

We recommend you include a summary of your work history from internship onwards, so we can make sure all eligible work is recorded. If you have already completed 156 weeks of work in eligible locations, clearly point this out in your email as we are prioritising these cases.

We can only assess your RoSO once you have provided all required evidence. If your evidence does not meet the requirements, we will ask you to submit new documentation.

BMP Scheme 2016–2019 participants

If you are a participant in the BMP Scheme with a 52-week obligation, you can now complete your RoSO pro-rata, either part-time or per day. You no longer have to do it in full-time blocks of at least 10 weeks. You must now complete a total of 1820-hours of RoSO, with only the first 35 hours worked per week counting toward that total.

Implementation pending

This functionality is expected to be available from November 2026.

For now, if you want to record work under the amendment (referred to as a ‘pool of hours’), you will need to keep a logbook. Once BRoSS is updated later this year, you will be able to enter your RoSO yourself.

We can only assess your RoSO once you have provided all required evidence. If your evidence does not meet the requirements, we will ask you to submit new documentation.

Telehealth

Reporting telehealth is now easier. You only need to provide evidence that you provided services from an eligible location.

Implemented

This change is fully implemented. We have updated how we review completion evidence.

BRoSS enhancements

We started the BRoSS Enhancement Project on 1 July 2025 to improve system performance and make sure the system meets legislative requirements. We have released several improvements, including:

• updated notifications that removed outdated penalty warnings and present key information more clearly
• performance improvements to make BRoSS faster and more reliable
• several RoSO screens have been updated to increase intuitiveness and accessibility.

During planned BRoSS outages, you may have limited access or experience temporary disruptions. We'll keep you informed about updates, and information about outages or scheduled maintenance will appear on our main Program web page.

Functionality release schedule

BRoSS user acceptance testing

A BRoSS release is an update to the system that:

• adds new features
• makes improvements
• changes how existing features work.

These updates mean we can better support users and improve performance.

User acceptance testing (UAT) is the final testing step before an update goes live, where real BRoSS users check that everything works properly and meets requirements.

We would like to include program participants in UAT for future BRoSS releases. If you’re a program participant and would like to take part, we’d love to hear from you.

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