Claiming bulk bill incentive items

Find out more about relevant Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) item descriptions and explanatory notes at MBS Online.

Medical practitioner eligibility for claiming bulk bill incentive items

All medical practitioners, vocationally registered or not, can claim bulk bill incentive items on eligible unreferred services.

Specialists and consultant physicians are also eligible if they:

• hold both medical practitioner and specialist Medicare recognition for their qualifications
• provide services to patients in their capacity as medical practitioners.

Medical practitioners can only claim bulk bill incentive items if they've met the conditions in the item descriptor.

If a health professional provides a bulk billed service, they can claim additional MBS items if:

• the service is an unreferred service
• the service is for a person under the age of 16 or the holder of or listed on a Commonwealth concession card (concessional beneficiary)
• the person isn't an admitted patient in a hospital
• both the service and associated additional item are bulk billed.

If a Medicare benefit isn’t payable for a service, it’s also not payable for the associated bulk billed incentive item.

The table below gives some explanations for terms on this page.

DVA Gold or White Cards aren’t recognised Commonwealth concession cards. DVA Gold or White card holders must hold a concession card listed above to be treated under Medicare arrangements.

Bulk bill incentive items

The table below lists bulk bill incentive items for unreferred services.

For items 10991, 10992, 64991, 64992, 64993, 64994, 64995, 74991, 75855, 75856, 75858, 75861, 75862, 75863, 75864, additional conditions apply to the location where the medical practitioner provided the service.

Bulk bill incentive items aren’t payable with COVID-19 vaccine suitability assessment services.

Find out more about bulk bill incentive items for unreferred services at MBS Online.

Checking a patient’s concessional eligibility

A patient is eligible for a concession if they hold a valid Commonwealth concession card at the date of service.

You can check if a patient’s eligible for a concession in real time either:

• through Health Professionals Online Services (HPOS)
• by calling us and using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) self-service.

We base a patient’s concessional eligibility on the information that we know at the time you check.

You can also check if a patient’s eligible for a concession by:

• viewing the patient's concession card
• confirming the patient is the person named on the concession card
• making sure the concession card is valid and current.