{"id":7249,"date":"2020-07-10T01:10:17","date_gmt":"2020-07-10T01:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=7249"},"modified":"2020-07-10T01:10:17","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T01:10:17","slug":"medicare-bulk-billing-rate-remains-high-at-86-1-per-cent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/07\/10\/medicare-bulk-billing-rate-remains-high-at-86-1-per-cent\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicare Bulk-Billing Rate Remains High At 86.1 Per Cent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past 12 months, 86.1% of Australians did not have to pay to visit their GP.<br \/>\nFigures for the past 12 months show:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An increase of more than 5.5 million free bulk-billed GP visits compared to the same period last year<\/li>\n<li>The number of fully subsidised services across Medicare rose with an additional 9.6 million bulk-billed services delivered for a total of 343.6 million.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Morrison Government\u2019s commitment to Medicare and bulk billing remains rock solid.<br \/>\nIn March, to help reduce the risk of community transmission of COVID-19, the Government introduced new temporary Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) telehealth items.<br \/>\nThe Government\u2019s rapid response meant better protection for patients and health care providers.<br \/>\nDuring this period, the COVID-19 temporary telehealth and telephone items represented 3.4 per cent of services across Medicare. This included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>110,060 telehealth consultations provided by GPs, specialists and allied health professionals.<\/li>\n<li>1,137,873 phone consultations provided by GPs, specialists and allied health professionals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The uptake of the COVID-19 temporary telehealth items was most pronounced for GPs. In March, 7.5 per cent of GP visits were provided through via phone (999,470 services) or telehealth (65,996 services).<br \/>\nWe doubled bulk-billing incentives to support these critical services because of the health emergency.<br \/>\nThe Government unveiled a comprehensive $2.4 billion health package to protect all Australians, including vulnerable groups such as the elderly, those with chronic conditions and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, from COVID-19.<br \/>\nAustralia has one of the best health systems in the world, founded on Medicare.<br \/>\nThe figures released today show Medicare, under this Government, is supporting the health and wellbeing of Australians more than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past 12 months, 86.1% of Australians did not have to pay to visit their GP. Figures for the past 12 months show: An increase of more than 5.5 million free bulk-billed GP visits compared to the same period last year The number of fully subsidised services across Medicare rose with an additional 9.6 &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/07\/10\/medicare-bulk-billing-rate-remains-high-at-86-1-per-cent\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Medicare Bulk-Billing Rate Remains High At 86.1 Per Cent&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}