Healthcare Funding

Australia’s Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs will run a wide review of how recent Medicare reforms affect rural primary care. The inquiry will assess the 1 November 2025 changes...

The National Health Reform Agreement has been finalised after months of stalemate between the federal and state governments. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese agreed to additional hospital funding to se...

The Australian Medical Association warns Medicare not to restrict GP access to MBS item 55278, which covers renal duplex ultrasound with B mode imaging and integrated Doppler flow analysis of renal an...

The Sustainability and Viability Initiative (SAVI) updated its early 2024 launch data for general practices in the Hunter New England and Central Coast region. SAVI aims to shore up financial, operati...

The Australian government has postponed the full rollout of the Thriving Kids program. The program, a $2 billion initiative designed to ease pressure on the NDIS and provide early support for children...

Professor Louise Stone lays out a blunt view of general practice in Australia. She uses the Cynefin framework to map patient problems into four habitats. The simplest are known knowns: clear diagnoses...

A NSW Primary Health Network released a viability analysis covering 189 general practices surveyed from July to October 2025 in the Hunter New England Central Coast region. The results show modest imp...

Birregurra, a rural Victoria town of about 1000 people, currently has only one GP at Birregurra Medical Centre. The clinic sits roughly two hours from Melbourne, and Dr Jared Kilday is leading a push...

The Australian Medical Association argues interoperability in health IT must be compulsory and backed by enforcement. In a new report, the AMA warns that without mandated standards and penalties, data...

The voluntary assisted dying sector in Australia faces major pay gaps. A 2025 survey by VADANZ shows 63% of practitioners feel under remunerated and 27% delivered care without pay. Only about one in t...

The Senate committee managing rural and regional affairs has opened a formal inquiry into rural Medicare access. The terms of reference focus on the financial viability of independently owned rural GP...

The Australian Digital Health Agency has invited software developers and implementers to test the Health Connect Australia Provider Directory FHIR Implementation Guide. The directory aims to provide n...

A Queensland Supreme Court ruling found that former Professional Services Review director Professor Julie Quinlivan committed misfeasance in public office when she referred ophthalmologist Dr David Ki...

The Department of Health Disability and Ageing launched a nationwide campaign to promote expanded bulk-billing incentives and the Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Program. The campaign carries the tagl...

Australia is expanding access to after-hours care through 1800MEDICARE, a government-funded virtual GP service that launched on 1 January. The program is operated by Healthdirect Australia and funded...

Australian general practice shifted heavily to telehealth after the COVID-19 period. A study in the Journal of Health Economics used MBS and PBS data from 2017 to 2022 to compare antibiotic dispensing...

The Australian GP policy landscape is adjusting to Medicare's chronic disease management CDM framework, with a new CDM framework taking effect from 1 July 2025. The Royal Australian College of General...

In Australia, GP access is presented as stronger than the common narrative suggests. Dr Nerida McDonald argues that general practice is highly accessible and that digital tools are already embedded in...

New modelling from Dexcom shows publicly funded continuous glucose monitors for type 1 diabetes in New Zealand have opened access to more than 19,000 people in the first year since October 2024. The p...

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing released plans to phase out Medicare rebate cheques by July 2028 and opened a public consultation on the changes. Under the proposal, government cheques...