Methods
Where every number on this site comes from, how each measure is built, and what the figures can’t tell you.
Data
| Data | Publisher |
|---|---|
| Medicare quarterly statistics, SA3 summary | Department of Health, Disability and Ageing |
| Medicare quarterly statistics, state and territory | Department of Health, Disability and Ageing |
| Medicare quarterly statistics, bulk billing by Primary Health Network | Department of Health, Disability and Ageing |
| Medicare GP non-referred attendances patient bulk billing ranges | Department of Health, Disability and Ageing |
| Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), 2021 | Australian Bureau of Statistics |
| Use of emergency departments for lower urgency care | Australian Institute of Health and Welfare |
| Boundaries, suburbs and postcodes (ASGS Edition 3) | Australian Bureau of Statistics, CC BY 4.0 |
All Medicare figures are published in the department’s Medicare statistics collection. Policy dates come from the Minister for Health’s announcement on the Bulk Billing Incentive Program. Every area and quarter is in the downloadable CSV.
Measures
- Bulk-billing rate
- The share of GP visits (Medicare’s “GP non-referred attendances”) that were bulk billed. It counts visits, not people or clinics. Visits are placed in the area of the patient’s Medicare address, not the clinic’s, and in the quarter Medicare processed the claim.
- Financial-year rate
- The four quarters of a financial year combined, each weighted by its number of GP visits.
- Patients always or never bulk billed
- The share of patients whose GP visits in a financial year were all bulk billed (always), half or more (usually), fewer than half (sometimes) or none (never). Temporary COVID-19 vaccine items are left out. Published nationally, by state and by Primary Health Network, not for local areas.
- Gap fee
- The average amount a patient paid out of pocket for a GP visit that was not bulk billed, outside hospital.
- Cost per visit
- The gap fee spread across every GP visit, counting bulk-billed visits as $0: the gap fee multiplied by the share of visits not bulk billed.
- Disadvantage fifths
- The ABS Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage is published for smaller areas (SA2s). Each local area’s score is the population-weighted average of its SA2s; the 332 areas are then ranked and split into five equal groups. Figures by fifth use the median area in each group.
- GP visits per resident
- Medicare-funded GP visits over the past four quarters divided by the area’s population at the 2021 Census.
The analyses
- 2030 target
- Each area’s rate in the latest quarter is compared with the same quarter a year earlier. If that rise continued unchanged, would the area reach 90% by the June quarter of 2030? Areas are grouped as already at 90%, on pace, short, or going backwards. This is a test of the recent pace, not a forecast.
- Response to the November 2025 incentive
- For each area, the rise in the rate over the year to Oct–Dec 2025, Jan–Mar 2026 and Apr–Jun 2026, minus the rise over the same quarters a year earlier. Comparing like quarters removes seasonal swings; subtracting the earlier rise removes each area’s existing trend. Area types are the AIHW’s: remoteness outside the major cities and, inside them, the ABS Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (2021), by where most of an area’s neighbourhoods (SA1s) rank nationally. Bottom two fifths: more disadvantaged; middle two: middle; top fifth: least disadvantaged.
- Gap-fee hotspots
- Areas in the two most disadvantaged fifths, with at least 10,000 GP visits a quarter, where the cost per visit is above the national figure.
- Emergency departments
- Lower-urgency emergency presentations (AIHW, age-standardised, per 1,000 people, by area of residence) are compared with the financial-year bulk-billing rate. The area test uses local areas in the major cities only, because the AIHW advises caution with regional and remote figures, which count only formal emergency departments. It correlates each area’s change in bulk billing from 2021–22 (the first year with area figures) to 2023–24 with its change in emergency use from 2018–19 to 2023–24, starting before COVID-19 inflated emergency use in some areas. The correlation is taken raw and within groups of the same state and AIHW area type, and checks the result with the 5% of areas with the most extreme changes left out. The 95% ranges use the Fisher transformation.
- Ranked lists
- Lists of areas leave out those with fewer than 10,000 GP visits a quarter, where a handful of visits can swing the figures.
Limits
- Area figures describe whole areas, not any one clinic or person. A low rate does not mean no clinic there bulk bills.
- Associations between areas, such as disadvantage and bulk billing, are not evidence of cause.
- Local areas are the ABS’s 2021 Statistical Areas Level 3. Medicare combines four pairs of them (for example Wollongong with the Illawarra Catchment Reserve). External territories are left out.
- SEIFA and the population for visits per resident come from the 2021 Census, so they run behind fast-growing areas.
- Medicare counts only care it pays for. Care at state-run and many Aboriginal community-controlled clinics isn’t included.
- Suburbs and postcodes are matched to the area containing their centre, so places on a boundary may be shown in a neighbouring area.
Updates and changes
Medicare publishes new figures every quarter, about two months after the quarter ends. When the files are added, the site is rebuilt and checked automatically, and every figure, chart and article number updates with it. The written analysis on disadvantage is dated and stays as written.
- November 2026. Analysis section with four new pieces: the 2030 target, the response to the November 2025 incentive, gap-fee hotspots and emergency departments. Methods page.
- October 2026. Patients as well as visits; disadvantage analysis; a page for every local area; cost per visit; downloadable data; accessibility review.
- October 2026. First published.