With just one and a half weeks remaining before the Federal Government’s new Assignment of Benefit requirements were due to take effect, the Government confirmed overnight that it will introduce a 12-month transition period for its proposed reforms. Many assume the problem is now solved, however if nothing changes, we will be having the same conversation this time next year, explains Bindy Marshall, Accredited Aged Care Professional and Senior Paralegal.
I work with aged care residents and their families every day. I see first-hand how much they rely on regular GP visits, and how much the system already asks of the staff and practitioners who care for them.
So, when news broke overnight that the Federal Government would introduce a 12-month transition period for its proposed Assignment of Benefit (AoB) reforms, there was a real sense of relief across the industry.
However, while some reports have described the announcement as a 12-month reprieve, the reforms themselves are still set to commence on 1 July 2026 as confirmed in section 2 under the Health Insurance Amendment (Assignment of Medicare Benefits and other Measures) Regulations 2025.
What this means is that all the episodic changes outlined in section 65C will still be implemented in the background, but GPs will not be audited on the new changes for 12 months.
For now, verbal consent will continue to be accepted across all settings for the next 12 months, while aged care residents and other eligible patients will be able to enter into enduring Assignment of Benefit arrangements.
While this gives providers some breathing room for the moment, breathing room is not the same as a solution. The introduction of enduring Assignment of Benefit arrangements is a positive step, but there remains uncertainty about how the broader consent framework will operate after the transition period ends.
What was about to change
Only weeks ago, the way GPs bulk bill aged care residents was set to change from 1 July 2026, ending the use of verbal consent for Medicare bulk billing. From that date, practitioners would have been required to obtain a physical or electronic signature from the patient or a responsible person before lodging a claim, and to retain that documentation for two years.
While the reforms aimed to modernise Medicare bulk billing and improve accountability, they were developed without serious consideration of how they would function inside a residential aged care facility. The practical reality of obtaining signed consent from residents who may lack capacity, and from attorneys acting under an Enduring Power of Attorney (EPOA) who may live interstate, had not been properly worked through.
I raised these concerns directly with the Department of Health, Disability and Aged Care, and last night’s announcement shows that the sector’s voice has been heard, at least for now.
Why the original proposal was so concerning
A significant number of aged care residents have an activated EPOA for health and financial matters. Under the proposed rules, consent would have been required before each bulk-billed consultation, every visit, not once over a set period, and not shared across treating practitioners.
In practice, that consent is rarely straightforward to obtain. Attorneys are often located in different cities or states, and in some cases multiple attorneys have been jointly appointed. If a GP had arrived at a facility and consent could not be obtained in time, the consultation would not have proceeded under bulk billing, leaving the resident to either miss out on care or fund it privately.
If a GP was called to attend a resident overnight and the resident lacked decision-making capacity, and the attorney was unreachable, the GP’s hands would have been tied. Facilities would have had little option but to transfer residents to hospital emergency departments for conditions that could be managed on-site, placing additional and avoidable strain on ambulance services, emergency departments and public hospitals.
The administrative burden on facilities would also have been severe. Many aged care facilities require visiting GPs once or twice a week, and under the proposed rules, staff and GPs would have needed to coordinate signed Assignment of Benefit documentation for every resident, for every doctor, every time.
For a facility with over 100 residents, that workload would have diverted staff away from direct resident care and made GP visits to aged care facilities an even less attractive part of an already difficult area of practice.
Many GPs have confirmed that this is just too hard, and that they wouldn’t be able to manage the administrative nightmare and would simply not visit aged care facilities.
Additional forms would have to be completed by the authorised person when a GP, partway through a routine review, determined that additional services were required, such as wound management, pathology testing or a biopsy. Each of those services carries a different Medicare item number. This would have been an administrative nightmare for both the facility and the GP.
What the Government has announced
Under the revised arrangements confirmed overnight:
- From 1 July 2026, verbal consent will continue to be available in all settings for a period of 12 months.
- Enduring Assignment of Benefit will be available from 1 July 2026 for all MyMedicare registered patients, residents of aged care facilities, and patients attending Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs). This brings the start date forward from the previously proposed commencement of April 2027.
- Patients attending ACCHOs will be able to have enduring assignment arrangements across multiple sites.
- Providers and software vendors who have already prepared, or are preparing, for the new arrangements, including through digital solutions, are encouraged to continue this work.
- Compliance activity will not commence until the necessary regulatory changes are completed and will initially focus on prevention and education rather than enforcement.
- A 12-month transition period will apply, during which the Government has committed to working with the medical profession to refine the approach and explore further options to reduce the administrative burden on both GP practices and patients.
A reprieve, not a resolution
There is still significant work to be done.
A 12-month period buys the Government time. It does not, on its own, solve the underlying problem.
Many of the vulnerable people we support live with disability, cognitive impairment, frailty or acute illness. Signatures from these residents, or from attorneys who may be unreachable at short notice, will not become any easier to obtain twelve months from now unless the system itself is built to accommodate that reality.
The enduring Assignment of Benefit option for aged care residents is the only mechanism that would work to support both GPs and the residents and should be the permanent, default approach for residential aged care, with no expiry date attached.
We will continue advocating for a final framework that is built around the realities of healthcare delivery in aged care facilities and during home visits, where obtaining a fresh signature for every visit, every practitioner and every change in treatment is not always possible or appropriate.
We look forward to ongoing consultation to ensure the arrangements that emerge at the end of this transition period protect timely and effective medical care for some of the most vulnerable members of our community.
