MEDICARE'S share of Bendigo doctors' bills has flatlined to levels not seen in 20 years, newly released figures suggest.
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Researchers at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare have revealed Medicare is footing a near-record low percentage of GP fees.
"It's remarkable. I don't think we've seen a decline in the subsidy rate that is as rapid," institute spokesperson Dr Adrian Webster said.
He did not want to speculate on what had triggered the fall, preferring to wait until he had more data.
Medicare's share of bills for other types of Bendigo specialists have remained largely stable, including for obstetrics, anaesthetics, pathology and diagnostic imaging.
Dr Webster was speaking as the institute released a trove of Medicare data dating back to the scheme's birth in 1984.
The newly released figures chart the share of bills Medicare has paid, and how much patients, private health insurers and others have footed.
It is not clear from the institute's data whether the most recent drop in Medicare's share was because doctors may have increased their charges.
The only time Medicare has paid a smaller share of Bendigo GP bills was in January 2004, at the tail end of a decade of steady declines, before a reversal potentially triggered by incoming government reforms.
Greater Bendigo was not an outlier in the latest falls. Its experiences were broadly in line with the rest of the country's.
Medicare has been paying a smaller and smaller share of Australian GP bills since 2020, when the arrival of COVID-19 triggered the greatest demand on the public insurance scheme in its 39 year history.
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At the time, government incentives and nation-wide vaccination campaigns drove the percentage of GP fees Medicare covered to 94.5 per cent.
That share started dropping in stages from late October 2020, the institute's data suggests.
The institute has released the Medicare figures in the same week the government announced new measures to reverse a "collapse" in bulk billing.
Government MP and member for Bendigo Lisa Chesters said tripling bulk billing incentives would allow more people to get GP consultations without paying a gap fee.
"The change that we've announced in the budget [is] the first big step to restore Medicare to be that universal healthcare system that we want and hope it to be," she said.
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Tom O'Callaghan
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
