Labor wants all Australians to have access to a free bulk billing doctor.
Whether your family needs urgent or ongoing health care, under Labor, every Australian will have access to free healthcare with their Medicare card.
The Werribee Medicare Urgent Care Clinic
Labor went to the last election promising to open 50 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics. We’ve now opened 87, including our very own right here in Werribee.
The Werribee Medicare Urgent Care Clinic is a key part of the Albanese Government’s reforms to strengthen Medicare to deliver a better, fairer and stronger health system and to deliver cost of living relief.
Clinics are open for extended hours and at weekends, with no appointment needed. Services are fully bulk billed, with no out of pocket costs for patients. Since it has opened, 20,000 locals have received bulk-billed urgent medical treatment at the Werribee Medicare Urgent Care Clinic.
Medicare Urgent Care Clinics are taking the pressure off busy hospital emergency departments. Nearly half the patients say they would have gone to the local emergency department if the Medicare Urgent Care Clinic was not there.
Made it easier and cheaper to see a doctor
Labor tripled the bulk billing incentive for people who need to see their GP most often - helping pensioners, concession cardholders, and families with children.
Labor has restored bulk billing for 11 million Australians, creating an additional 6 million bulk billed GP visits.
Labor will make the single largest investment in Medicare ever. This will deliver an additional 120,000 additional bulk billed GP visits every year so locals can see a bulk billing GP.
More GPs for Wyndham
In 2019, the former Liberal Government cut the ability of local GP clinics to recruit doctors from overseas to deliver bulk-billed services. Clinics were reporting they couldn't take any new patients and wait times of 5 days, and in some cases local doctors, nurses & staff were in tears because of the pressure this has put on them.
Since we've come to Government, Labor has reversed this cut - allowing local clinics to recruit more doctors to deliver bulk-billing services.
Cheaper medicines
By delivering the biggest ever reduction in the cost of PBS prescriptions and freezing the cost of PBS medicines, Labor is making hundreds of medicines cheaper for Australians.
For Australians with pensioner or concession cards, we’re freezing the price of PBS medicines for five years. So those Australians won’t pay more than $7.70 for the medicine they need.
These policies have meant locals have saved over $7 million.
And we’ll make medicine even cheaper, so the most you’ll pay for a PBS medicine is just $25 a script. This will save locals $1.5 million.
Medicare Coverage for MRI Machines for Wyndham
For too long, locals have had to travel to Sunshine or Geelong to access MRI scans covered by Medicare. I’ve been campaigning for almost a decade to get a Medicare MRI Licence for Wyndham.
Labor is delivering 4, with the first coming online this year. Patients will benefit from reduced waiting times leading to quicker diagnosis and more timely management of their conditions.
1800-MEDICARE
A re-elected Albanese Labor Government will build on our historic investment in Medicare to take pressure off hospitals and make free, urgent care available to all Australians, in every community, with the launch of 1800MEDICARE.
Life isn't 9 to 5. With 1800MEDICARE, neither is health care.
1800MEDICARE will be a free, nationwide 24/7 health advice line and afterhours GP telehealth service, backed by Medicare.
Better Health Care for local women
The Albanese Labor is delivering more choice, lower costs and better health care for women in Wyndham.
Women deserve to have their health care taken seriously and these changes could save women and their families thousands of dollars across their lifetimes.
Here’s the detail:
- The first PBS listing for new oral contraceptive pills in more than 30 years, with the listing of Yaz® and Yasmin® saving 50,000 women hundreds of dollars a year and work underway to list more contraceptive pills.
- More choice, lower costs and better access to long-term contraceptives, with larger Medicare payments and more bulk billing for IUDs and birth control implants, saving around 300,000 women a year up to $400 in out-of-pocket costs.
- More Medicare support for women experiencing menopause, with a new Medicare rebate for menopause health assessments, funding to train health professionals, the first-ever clinical guidelines and a national awareness campaign.
- The first PBS listing for new menopausal hormone therapies in over 20 years, with around 150,000 women each year saving hundreds of dollars a year.
- More endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics treating more conditions, opening 11 new clinics and ensuring all 33 clinics are staffed to provide specialist support for menopause.
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