1 July Medicare and MBS Updates
Your Halaxy account is ready for the Medicare updates taking effect on 1 July. This article outlines the upcoming changes and explains how Halaxy is handling them for you, helping your practice stay focused on patient care rather than administration
How Halaxy is taking care of it for you, and what you need to know.
You may have heard that from 1 July 2026, Medicare is introducing new bulk billing assignment of benefit requirements that may affect how your practice processes bulk billed services.
Whilst the change may seem complex, there’s very little that your practice needs to do. Halaxy already covers these requirements and extends existing features where needed.
Below we explain what’s changing, how Halaxy supports this change, and any quick actions your practice may need to take before 1 July.
Changes to Medicare bulk billing rules
From 1 July 2026, patients must assign their Medicare benefits to you electronically (via SMS or email link) or using an updated paper form.
What do you need to do?
For Halaxy customers, there is no action required, as Halaxy handles these changes.
The new requirements sit within your existing appointment and invoicing workflows, where you use the improved payment authorisation link to capture assignment of benefit for bulk billing, before or after your consult.
These automated workflows remove hours of administration, helping your practice meet the new requirements without adding extra workload.
We've put together a summary of the workflows practices use to bulk bill, and how Halaxy handles each one.
✅ No action required
- Invoice before or after the consult within your existing workflow.
- The improved payment authorisation link captures all the information required for patients to automatically complete their assignment of benefit.
- Bill as normal.
How to request assignment of benefit.
✅ Minimal change, no action required
- From 1 July, a new Benefit Assignment Authorised Indicator field will appear when submitting claims.
- When claiming, select whether the assignment pathway is “implied” or “requested”.
- Submit your claim as normal.
How to submit ECLIPSE claims under the new requirements.
For more information, please view Services Australia FAQs
Updated MBS fees and rebates
Unique to Halaxy
As we always do when Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) fees are added, updated, or archived, we have already updated Halaxy's Global Fee Database ahead of 1 July.
What do you need to do?
All you have to do is click Update Fees and Halaxy automatically handles the rest, making sure you get paid the full rebate every time. Updating your preset fees now means all invoices dated from 1 July automatically reflect the new Medicare pricing, without affecting your current fees.
✅ Action needed
To automatically update your preset fees before 1 July:
- Go to Finances > Fees and click Update Fees in the top right corner of the page.
- A pop-up appears with a list of the preset fees you have already imported, showing which fees have a new rebate amount available.
- Click Save and the new rebates and any fee changes will apply from 1 July.
How to to update your preset fees.
And that is it. You’re all set for the 1 July Medicare updates.