fees for gp consultations

UPDATE 1 July 2024: Medicare rebates have increased in line with CPI, so our consultation fees have increased by the same amount. This means the out-of-pocket amount (or gap) remains the same - eg. $55 for a standard consultation.

The doctors working from North Brighton Medical charge consultation fees as set out below.

STANDARD CONSULTATION FEES

Note: We do not offer any discounted fees or bulk billing on Saturdays (as well as on any Sundays or public holidays we open for). In addition, gap fees are an additional $10 on weekends and public holidays.

DISCOUNTED FEES

A $15 discount APPLIES on WEEKDAYS only for the following:

  • Patients with a Pension Card or Health Care Card;

  • Children aged 15 and under with no Medicare card; and

  • New patients attending for their first appointment (with subsequent consults on weekdays bulk billed, as set out below) who are:

    • Children aged 15 years and under;

    • Children aged 16-17 years with a Pension Card or Health Care Card; or

    • Patients who identify as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent.

BULK BILLING

The following patients will be bulk billed (on weekdays only):

  • Patients with a DVA gold card;

  • Children aged 15 years and under - EXCEPT for their first ever consultation at the clinic (the discounted fee above applies)

  • Children aged 16-17 years with a Pension Card or Health Care Card - EXCEPT for their first ever consultation at the clinic (the discounted fee above applies)

  • Patients who identify as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent - EXCEPT for their first ever consultation at the clinic (the discounted fee above applies)

  • Appointments for vaccinations and injections only, but only when booked in a vaccine clinic with our nurse, and only for existing patients.

PHONE AND VIDEO CONSULTS

  • We offer a 6-Minute Phone Consult appointment for existing patients on weekdays only with a very simple issue (such as a repeat script of regular medication, repeat referral or simple results). A discounted fee of $54.85 applies (ie. a $12 gap, if you are entitled to a Medicare rebate, for which you must have attended the clinic for a Face-to-Face Consult in the past 12 months - see Medicare’s rules). Normal fees will apply if additional issues are discussed, for any complex issues or results.

  • For longer appointments, fees for Phone Consults and Video Consults are the same as for a face-to-face consult of the same amount of time, as per the table above.

  • However, you WILL NOT be entitled to any Medicare rebate for a Phone or Video Consult if you have not attended the clinic for a Face-to-Face Consult in the past 12 months - see Medicare’s rules.

  • In addition, the maximum Medicare rebate for a Phone Consult is usually $42.85, so you will have a larger Gap if your consult lasts more than 20 minutes (including the time taken by the doctor to complete notes and referrals and other paperwork).

We recommend you always attend for a Face-to-Face Consult to ensure you receive the maximum Medicare rebate.

We will send you an SMS with a payment link after your telehealth consult, or you can call us to pay. A $10 Late Payment Fee will be payable if you fail to pay for a telehealth consultation within 7 days of the consult.

FEES FOR MENTAL HEALTH CONSULTATIONs


FEES FOR OTHER APPOINTMENT TYPES

* Bulk billing for these consultation types is only available to patients with a valid Medicare card.

fees for after hours services

If you choose to use our after hours service, an out-of-pocket fee of $300 will apply.

Most other after hours services are free of charge - see our After Hours page for details.

late cancellation fee / did not attend fee

You can cancel or reschedule your appointment with at least two hours notice and we will not charge a cancellation fee.

If you cancel your appointment with less than two hours notice, or if you fail to attend your appointment without notice, you will be charged a late cancellation fee of an amount equal to the normal fee for the appointment booked (ie. $97.85 for a standard consult, or $172.90 for a long consult).

For an Aviation Medical appointment (1 hour), you need to provide at least 24 hours notice of a cancellation, or you will be charged a late cancellation fee of up to $137.50.

On Time Guarantee

We have an On-Time Guarantee for most of our face-to-face GP consultations. Click here for details.

Payment

All fees must be paid immediately following your consultation.

We prefer payment by EFTPOS, Visa or Mastercard. We do not impose any surcharges for card payments made in the clinic or by calling to give your card details. However, if you pay for a consult using HotDoc/Pin Payments, a processing fee of 1.75% + 30 cents applies.

For hygiene reasons, we prefer not to take cash. You will need to provide exact change if you do wish to pay cash, as we do not maintain a float.

We do not accept cheques.

Medicare Rebate

If you have a Medicare card and have nominated your bank account details with Medicare, we can submit your Medicare claim at the time of payment and the Medicare rebate will be deposited into your account, usually within two business days.

Alternatively, we can provide you with an invoice and you can submit your claim with Medicare yourself after the consultation.

If you do not receive your Medicare rebate, please first contact Medicare to check that the address and bank details they have on file for you are correct. If you have done so and you have still not received your rebate, let us know and we will send you a copy of your invoice so can make a manual claim - in doing so, you will be able to update your address and bank details for future rebate claims.

TAC AND WORKCOVER CLAIMS

If your consultation relates to a TAC or WorkCover claim, our normal consultation fees apply as set out above.

You will need to pay us yourself on the day of the appointment. We will provide you with an invoice and you can then need submit a claim for a rebate (ie. with TAC, WorkCover or your employer). You won’t be able to make a Medicare claim, unless TAC/WorkCover don’t accept your claim.

Note that you will usually be out-of-pocket after receiving your TAC/WorkCover rebate (unless the consultation would have been bulk billed or concessional if Medicare applied, in which case we will charge you the same amount as the amount you should be entitled to receive back from TAC/WorkCover).

TAC/WorkCover rebates are higher than Medicare rebates, so the amount you are out-of-pocket will be smaller - usually about $25 for a standard consult, or $30 for a long consultation.

invoices

The GPs working from North Brighton Medical are independent sole traders. They each engage North Brighton Medical to provide them with consulting space, reception and billing services, and access to medical equipment and consumables and nursing staff. Invoices for consultations are issued by the relevant GP.

North Brighton Medical issues its own invoices to patients for other fees which are not consultation fees, such as fees for vaccines (when not government funded) and fees for other medical consumables, nursing fees, and administrative fees.

why we don’t routinely bulk bill patients

We are a privately billing clinic, so our doctors do not routinely bulk bill patients, except as outlined above.

There are many reasons for this, but in particular, it is because bulk billing would mean that we would not be able to provide our services at the very high-level of quality that we believe we currently do.

Privately billing means:

  • Our doctors can see patients for an appropriate consultation time - our standard consult is 15 minutes, so that we don’t have to rush patients in and out of their consult;

  • Our doctors can run on time, rather than keeping you waiting for an hour or more because they have tried to squeeze in too many appointments;

  • We can hire high-quality nursing staff to ensure patients are properly cared for, and so that we can be proactive in looking after patient’s health;

  • We can hire high-quality reception staff to ensure you are greeted with a friendly smile by someone who can answer queries promptly;

  • We can encourage new GPs to join us as our older GPs retire - one quarter of Australia’s GPs plan to retire withn the next five years, but only 15% of all medical graduates become GPs (whereas that figure was 40% in the 1980s). This is partly because doctors in all other medical specialties are signficantly better paid than those in general practice;

  • We can invest in new technologies to further improve your healthcare experience; and

  • Our business can actually survive - we could not afford to pay our rent, staff and other costs if we relied solely on bulk billing.

Between 2014 and 2018, bulk billing and Medicare rebates for standard GP consultations were completely frozen by the government (ie. they did not receive an annual indexation increase in line with inflation/CPI). When rebates were unfrozen in 2018, no adjustment was made to account for the four year freeze - this means that between 2012 and 2022, Medicare rebates increased by an average of just over 1% each year, despite our overheads increasing by signficantly more (including rent, insurance, medical supplies, wages, electricity, etc).

The consumer price index (CPI) for Melbourne rose by 7% in the 12 months to March 2023, however in July 2023 the rebate for a standard GP consultation increased by just $1.45 cents to $41.20 – a 3.6% increase from the previous year.

In November 2022, we increased our gap fees for the first time in 18 months, and the increase was similar to the CPI increase over the same period.

See also this helpful Explainer from The Age newspaper.