Breaking news: Govt announces new rebates for MBS care plan items
The Federal Government has finally revealed that writing up or reviewing a chronic disease care plan will attract a rebate of $156.55 under its long-delayed shakeup.
From 1 July, the MBS item for team care arrangements — currently worth a rebate of $130.25 but considered a bureaucratic hurdle by most — will end.
Rather than a $164.35 rebate for writing a care plan and $82.10 for reviewing it, these rebates will be equalised at $156.55.
The AMA has already declared the new rebates a cut to general practice.
The revamp was meant to be in place last November, but was suddenly delayed weeks before the start date as the doctors’ groups haggled with the government over the value of the new items.
The items underpin more than $1 billion in annual Medicare funding for general practice.
There had been concerns that if the rebate change was bungled, the financial viability of some practices would be under threat.
The rebate changes were designed to encourage GPs to review patients on care plans as well as strip out unnecessary bureaucracy.
As expected, for patients registered with a practice through the MyMedicare patient enrolment scheme, they must receive their care plan for the practice where they are registered.
Care plans will remain available for unenrolled patients.
For patients, the care plan itself will become the entry point for subsidised allied health care, although the Federal Department of Health and Ageing stresses that needing multidisciplinary care is not a requirement to receive a care plan.
The previous rule that GPs had to work with two collaborating providers as part of the team care arrangements will also be scrapped from 1 July.
Patients who had a GP care plan in place before 1 July will remain eligible for subsidised allied health care until July 2027 before needing a new plan, the department said.
GPs would be able to write referral letters to allied health providers as they would to any medical specialist, rather than use the current referral forms, it added.
For non-VR GPs, the rebate will be $125.30 for writing or reviewing a care plan.
AMA president Dr Danielle McMullen, a GP in Brisbane, said the new rebates disappointed.
“We are encouraging the government to rethink this,” she told AusDoc.
She said a liaison group had worked with the government on reforming the policy requirements, such as relaxing the rules on allied health referral forms and expanding access for patients with chronic conditions who did not need multidisciplinary care.
However, this group had not been allowed to work on the finances, she said.
“Every GP practice is different, but it is likely they will have higher uptake of chronic disease management plans, but have to balance this with less funding per plan,” she said.
More information: Department of Health and Ageing fact sheet 2025; 22 May.
