Paying for healthcare in Australia

General Practitioners (GPs) often join with other GPs to provide 24 hour service.

The Australian government provides help with medical expenses through a scheme called Medicare. Medicare delivers free hospital care and also helps with the cost of seeing a local doctor or specialists, paying for medicine and other treatment.

In most cases, you will pay for medical care, then receive a refund for some of the payment.

Medicare allows you to be treated in a public hospital, at no charge, by a doctor appointed by the hospital.

Many Australians choose to get private health insurance to cover the costs that Medicare doesn’t cover. Even if you are privately insured, you can choose to be treated as a public patient.

Your GP will charge you a fee for each visit. After you submit a claim through Medicare, the government will return you most of the amount. Some GPs bulk bill and, in those cases, patients are not charged a fee. Medicare directly pays GPs a fixed fee per service given.

Under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), the government subsidises the cost of modest medicine.

To know more about healthcare in a specific region of Australia, click on one of the links with health information below:

To register with Medicare or get further information, call 13 2011 from within Australia, visit the Medicare homepage or go to one of the office locations.