The service provider receives a fixed proportion of the scheduled fee but avoids the costs and risks of billing and debt collection.
Bulk billing rebates may be collected and paid directly to the service provider, or the service provider may collect the equivalent fee from the patient; leaving the patient to claim the rebate online, over the telephone, by mail, or at a Medicare office.
To address the decline in bulk billing, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) called on the federal government to revise indexation to ensure rebates better reflect the rising costs of providing medical care and running a practice, which it says would encourage more GPs to bulk-bill.
The President of the AMA said that "the average government contribution to Medicare claims have fallen in real terms by more than 5 per cent over the past two decades, placing significant cost pressures on doctors.
"[4] In the 2014 Australian federal budget, the Abbott government proposed to impose a $7 co-payment for all bulk billed GP and medical test visits.