Payment and Financial Disclosure
**Important Billing Update: 1st November 2025**
At Adelaide Mums & Babies Clinic we value providing quality care and love getting to know you and your family.
The federal government has provided confusing and misleading information about GP clinics providing bulk-billed services and the changes coming from November 1st 2025.
The election promise that all GP services will be bulk-billed, is impossible to uphold for those clinics who invest in long appointments and high quality care. The most common areas of general practice needing this are mental health and women’s health.
Our clinic has always set out to provide high quality, evidence-based care. We value spending time with patients and want to continue to provide our niche services in breastfeeding, infant care, women’s health and mental health. None of this can be done in 6-minute medicine, which is the only way a clinic can survive with the universal bulk-billing incentives.
After much consideration, our clinic will continue with our current private fee model with Medicare rebates to the patient. This will allow us to provide the exceptional medical care our patients are seeking, and our team want to provide.
We will continue to advocate for increased Medicare rebates for long consultations, which allow comprehensive care. Thank you for understanding as we all navigate these changes together!
We are passionate about supporting families during a challenging time and love what we do. In order to provide a high quality service, we need to dedicate time to our patients and offer long consultations to give you and your family the care you deserve. Unfortunately, the Medicare Rebate has been frozen for over 20 years, and more importantly, it has never properly funded longer, more complex appointments. The Medicare Rebate is currently completely inadequate to cover the cost of our medical services. For this reason, all consults at Adelaide Mums and Babies Clinic will incur out of pocket costs (a gap payment). Our clinic does not offer bulk-billed consults. This applies to children, pensioners, health care card holders, students, and patients that may have previously been bulk-billed by us. Full payment is required to be paid on the day of the consultation. Any delayed payments may incur an additional payment such as an admin fee.
If a Medicare rebate can be applied to the consult (which occurs in the vast majority of cases), this rebate can be instant on the day or will be transferred into your nominated bank account within 48 hours depending on your account. Out of pocket costs apply to face-to-face, telehealth and telephone appointments.
For newborns, we highly recommend completing their Medicare card application on-line as soon as possible after their birth. If you do not have a valid Medicare card for them at the time of the consult, the full payment will be required to be made on the day, and you can apply for the Medicare rebate from Medicare directly, at a later date. It is now super easy to enrol via the Express Plus Medicare mobile app. Here is the link to the Services Australia website for information about registering your baby with Medicare.
Private Health Insurance does not cover appointments with doctors, only hospital admissions and some Allied Health appointments.
Please contact us to discuss payment of your account prior to your consultation, if you feel you will have trouble paying the full amount on the day. Payment plans are available.
If, like us, you feel your Medicare rebate should be increased, please write to your local Member of Parliament, or the Federal Health Minister, and ask for change.
Please contact our Practice Manager Rachael if you have genuine financial hardship to discuss payment options.
Please click here to see our Fee Structure.
CANCELLATION POLICY
Appointment reminders are sent out automatically through our software 48 hours in advance, allowing you up to 24 hours to cancel or reschedule an appointment before our 24 hour cancellation policy applies.
Appointments:
A cancellation fee will apply if there is failure to give 24 hours notice of appointment cancellation. The cancellation fee will be the out of pocket fee for the type of consultation that was booked. Please review our financial disclosure for the fees associated with cancellations.
If you complete an online booking you are agreeing and acknowledging the 24 hour cancellation policy.
Classes: Antenatal Breastfeeding Education Class & Bringing Baby Home Class
Cancellations over 48 hours will receive full reimbursement. Cancellations under 48 hours will receive a 50% refund.
Parents Group:
Cancellations of the entire 6 week block (if cancelled prior to class 1)
Cancellations under 24 hours have an $88 fee. Cancellations over 24 hours will receive a full refund.
DID NOT ATTEND (DNA) POLICY
If you do not attend a booked appointment or have not cancelled the appointment outside of the 24 hours a fee will apply. The Did not attend fee will be the out of pocket fee for the type of consultation that was booked. Please review our financial disclosure for the fees associated with a did not attend fee.
