The RACGP has called on the Federal Government to explain how a growing number of not-for-profits can charge patients membership fees in return for bulk-billed consults while mainstream practices are being told they would be breaking the law.

It comes amid the current row around the National Health Co-op.

Backed with subsidies from the ACT Government, the organisation’s 11 clinics based in the territory are charging membership fees of up to $120 a year in return for universal bulk-billing. 

As a result it has become the ACT’s largest provider of GP services, delivering more than 180,000 bulk-billed consults a year.