services attract lower benefits and some services provided by professionals allied to medicine i.e., dental and optical services are not covered by Medicare at all.
Doctors do not have to stick to the schedule fee however. They can choose to bill the Medicare administration directly. If they do not bill the patient, the doctor is paid 85 percent of the fee covered by Medicare and the patient pays nothing. This bulk billing, as it is called, is becoming increasingly common. In fact, it is even encouraged by Australia's government particularly for patients who solely require the attention of a general practitioner. Bulk billing gives the patient the "feeling" that services have been provided entirely for free. It is estimated that 70 percent of the bills for general practitioners are settled accordingly.
For secondary care there is a mix of public, private, and charitable hospitals. About 40 percent of the funding for the public hospitals comes from the federal government, nearly 50 percent from state governments
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