The Editorial Standards Behind Every Australian Medical Centre Entry
This page sets out the editorial framework we work to: who writes our content, how we source it across the Commonwealth, all eight states and territories, and the Primary Health Network framework, how we verify it, how we handle corrections, what advertising relationships we accept and decline, and how we handle AI assistance. Read it alongside our Sources & Methodology.
What is on this page
1. Editorial Mission
Australian general practice is local and varied. There are around 7,000 GP clinics across the country, plus dental practices, sexual health clinics, women’s health centres, Aboriginal Medical Services (AMS), Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs), and Medicare Urgent Care Clinics. Each has its own opening hours, telephone, bulk-billing arrangement, Telehealth offering, partner team, accreditation status, and Primary Health Network attribution. We exist to give Australian patients, carers, family members, and clinicians referring across services plain-English access to each practice’s administrative details — without auto-scraped staleness, without misleading branding suggesting government endorsement, and without any confusion between directory information and clinical advice.
2. Source Hierarchy
We work to a six-tier source hierarchy, where higher-tier sources govern when sources conflict:
- Tier 1 — Primary authority: The practice’s own published website (where one exists) and healthdirect.gov.au’s Service Finder. The practice’s own page is the definitive current reference for bulk-billing status, opening hours, partner team, and services offered.
- Tier 2: Practice accreditation status with AGPAL or GPA Accreditation Plus, against the RACGP Standards for general practices (5th edition).
- Tier 3: The relevant Primary Health Network (PHN) — one of 31 PHNs nationally — for catchment attribution and locally commissioned services.
- Tier 4: Professional regulators — AHPRA and its 15 National Boards (Medical Board, Nursing and Midwifery Board, Pharmacy Board, Dental Board, Optometry Board, Psychology Board, Physiotherapy Board, and the others) — for individual-clinician registration status where it is appropriate to confirm.
- Tier 5: ACSQHC NSQHS Standards, NHMRC guidelines, and TGA regulatory context — for background on services described, never as a substitute for clinical advice.
- Tier 6: RACGP, ACRRM, AMA, NACCHO, and established Australian healthcare publications — background context only.
Full detail on each tier is on our Sources & Methodology page.
3. Verification Workflow
- Identify the right authoritative source. The practice’s own published page; healthdirect Service Finder; accreditation listing with AGPAL or GPA Accreditation Plus; state or territory health department directory.
- Verify URLs are live. A human editor clicks every link before publication.
- Cross-check the bulk-billing status against the practice’s current published billing notice.
- Verify the PHN attribution against the PHN-postcode mapping published by the Department of Health and Aged Care.
- Verify Telehealth and online services availability against the practice’s published page (Telehealth items under the MBS change periodically).
- Verify accreditation status against AGPAL or GPA Accreditation Plus where the practice publishes its accreditation.
- Dial-test the practice main telephone. Quarterly cycle.
- Editor sign-off. A second editor reviews end-to-end, including a fresh check on the “this is not medical advice” notice and the 000 / healthdirect emergency framework.
4. Bulk-Billing Status — Our Quarterly Focus
Bulk-billing status is the single most-asked question in Australian primary care and the single most stale data point in most Australian GP directories. Practices change bulk-billing arrangements in response to MBS indexation, after-hours rebate changes, the November 2023 tripling of the bulk-billing incentive for concession-card holders and children under 16, and changes to their own practice economics. We re-check bulk-billing status for every practice on the site on a quarterly cycle and re-verify against the practice’s current published billing notice. We do not rely on aggregator-reported bulk-billing status.
5. Independence
medicalcentre-au.org/ is independent. We are not affiliated with the Australian Government, the Department of Health and Aged Care, Services Australia, AHPRA, the TGA, the NHMRC, ACSQHC, RACGP, ACRRM, AMA, AGPAL, GPA Accreditation Plus, any PHN, any state or territory health department, or any commercial healthcare platform. No Australian Government body, regulator, or third party reviews our content prior to publication. No payment is accepted for editorial coverage of any specific practice, any specific bulk-billing arrangement, or any specific service.
6. Advertising Relationships
We are funded by display advertising. Our editorial content is never altered to favour any advertiser. We decline advertising in these categories:
- Operations marketed as a substitute for GP services, healthdirect, or 000 — including unregulated “online doctor” or Telehealth operations not operating through an AHPRA-registered practitioner and not satisfying the TGA’s regulatory requirements for Telehealth where applicable
- Operations that misrepresent themselves as Medicare, Services Australia, AHPRA, the TGA, or any other Australian Government body
- Therapeutic claims that do not comply with the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code issued under the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989
- Prescription-only medicines (Schedule 4 of the Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Medicines and Poisons, the “Poisons Standard”) advertised direct to consumers in breach of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989
- Unregulated alternative or “miracle cure” products targeting serious medical conditions
- Cosmetic procedures not delivered through an AHPRA-registered practitioner
- Health-insurance comparisons or advice without an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) where required
- Gambling, payday lending, adult content, or other categories incompatible with our health-information context
7. Not Clinical Content
We describe what services a practice offers, where it is, and how to contact it. We do not publish symptom checkers, diagnostic tools, treatment recommendations, medication advice, or anything that could be relied upon for a clinical decision. For clinical questions, the routes are: your GP, healthdirect on 1800 022 222, the symptom information at healthdirect.gov.au, and in an emergency 000. Our content is not a replacement for any of these.
8. Corrections
If a directory entry is wrong — address change, partner change, branch closure, bulk-billing change, telephone change, PHN change, accreditation expiry — we want to know and we want to fix it. Reader-reported corrections are our priority queue. We process corrections within 7 business days, with a 48-hour expedited path for broken practice URLs and clearly out-of-date bulk-billing notices. We add a small editorial note when a substantive correction is made.
9. The MBS, PBS, and Health-Reform Cycle
Australian Commonwealth health policy moves on a continuous reform cycle. The Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) is updated quarterly with new items, item changes, and item deletions. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is updated continuously. The bulk-billing incentive structure has been substantially adjusted (the November 2023 triple-incentive; the November 2025 expanded incentive). The Telehealth MBS items framework is updated periodically. PHN boundaries occasionally adjust. The MyMedicare voluntary patient registration program has been rolled out progressively. We review our framework content after every substantive MBS, PBS, or Telehealth change and update before the change affects practice arrangements where the timing is published in advance.
10. Authors and Contributors
Site content is written and reviewed by editors who have spent time researching and writing about Australian general practice. Specialist subject-matter reviewers — including practising GPs, practice managers, AHPRA-registered nurses, and Australian privacy and consumer-law professionals — are consulted on substantive editorial questions, particularly after MBS / PBS changes or major Privacy Act reforms. We do not publish ghost-written content from third parties without editorial review.
11. AI and Automation
We use software tools for spell-check (Australian English), grammar review, and routine drafting assistance. However, no editorial fact, URL, telephone number, bulk-billing status, PHN attribution, address, or service description on medicalcentre-au.org/ is published from AI without human verification against the practice's own published page. Every practice entry passes through human editorial review. We do not auto-generate or auto-publish practice entries. We do not use AI to write clinical content of any kind on this site, because we do not publish clinical content of any kind on this site.
12. Contact
For corrections, editorial questions, or sourcing enquiries: info@medicalcentre-au.org
Spotted a Correction?
Email us with subject line “Correction” — corrections are our priority queue, 7 business days, 48-hour expedited path for broken practice URLs and out-of-date bulk-billing notices.
📧 info@medicalcentre-au.org