To The Valued Patients of Flynns Beach and Lachlan Medical Centres,

Notice of Price Increase effective 29 August 2022

Flynns Beach Medical and Lachlan Medical Centres have always prided ourselves on providing friendly, high-quality care to our patients and the greater community, and would like to continue doing this well into the future.  

Successive federal governments have frozen the Medicare rebate or only lifted it marginally. The costs of running our practice have increased around 5% per year and yet the Medicare rebate has increased at around 0.5% per year. Like most households, we have also had price hikes for the majority of our expenses, including utilities, insurance, registrations, maintenance, medical consumables, accreditation fees and staffing costs.

We have up till now absorbed these cost increases but can no longer continue to do so if our practice is to remain open. The Medicare rebate, your rebate, only covers a small portion of the cost of providing quality health care. Unlike the hospital system, Community General Practice is not subsidised by state or federal governments, we are a privately and locally owned small business, as are many other general practices.

After very careful consideration, we have had to make a number of changes to our billing policy in order to ensure that we can continue to provide high quality patient care. With rising costs and limited Medicare rebates, it has become necessary to both increase our fees and make some changes to those patients who can access bulk billing.

Keeping the Practice viable so we can continue to serve the community and avoid closure, a risk facing many Practices, is at the core of our fee changes. Unfortunately, it is not possible for this practice to meet our running costs each year without increasing our fees. If you wish to let the Government know that the Medicare rebate is insufficient to assist you in meeting the cost of your medical care, please contact your local Member of Parliament at http://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Members and/or the Minister for Health:

Please find included with this letter some reference material/links which you may find informative and discusses the issues currently being faced by medical practices.

Thank you for your understanding.

Flynns Beach Medical Centre and Lachlan Medical CentreFlynns Beach and Lachlan Medical Centres