AMA Releases New Poster Highlighting Medicare Gap Widening
30 Apr 2026
The poster explains that rising inflation and higher practice costs are widening the gap between what patients pay and what Medicare covers. It also includes a QR code linking to AMA resources that outline policy changes the organisation says are needed to reduce these gaps.
The AMA says decades of low Medicare indexation, along with a long period of frozen rebates, have left payments well below the actual cost of providing care.
While recent government increases to bulk billing incentives have improved access for some patients, the AMA says these apply only to a small number of Medicare Benefits Schedule items and do not address broader gaps in specialist care, private GP services or surgery.
The AMA is calling for major Medicare reform, including higher GP rebates through a new tiered structure to better support chronic and complex care.
For specialist services, it is also seeking higher rebates, changes to private health insurance gap arrangements, improved indexation, greater transparency from insurers, and increased funding for public hospital outpatient services.
The organisation says these reforms are needed to modernise Medicare and ensure patients can access affordable care across both public and private systems.
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