Medicare Bulk Billing Rate — methodology
Category: Health & Wellbeing · Unit: % · Published monthly
What this metric measures
Percentage of Medicare (MBS) services that are bulk billed — meaning patients pay no out-of-pocket cost.
Why it matters: Bulk billing makes healthcare affordable. A declining rate signals reduced access to free GP and specialist visits.
Source & provenance
- Publisher
- AIHW
- Update frequency
- monthly
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
How the score is computed
The score is a 0–100 normalisation of the latest observation, compared to a baseline window. The traffic-light rating (RAG) reflects both the absolute level and the recent trend.
- Direction
- Higher is better
- Trend window
- 60 months
- Baseline
- Last 10 years
Thresholds:
{
"red_max_pct_of_baseline": 95,
"amber_min_pct_of_baseline": 95,
"green_min_pct_of_baseline": 102
}See related corrections at /corrections, or the live data and chart at https://www.australiametrics.org/metric/medicare-bulk-billing-rate.