The rate of bulk billing in Tasmania has jumped by 8 per cent since last November when the Albanese government boosted Medicare incentives to doctors, newly released government data has revealed.
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The government last year tripled Medicare Benefits Schedule bulk billing incentive payments for doctors treating concession card holders and children under 16 for certain consultations.
The change was part of a $6.1 billion health policy aimed at making it easier for Australians to see a doctor when they needed to, federal Health Minister Mark Butler said.
With seven months of data since the boost to incentives was brough it, bulk billing rates in Tasmania have increased by 8.1 per cent, and 3.4 per cent nationally.
Bulk billing rates were in "freefall" after a decade of "cuts and neglect to Medicare by the Liberals", Mr Butler said.
But the new data showed that the decision to boost Medicare incentives to doctors had arrested this decline, he said.
"The pressure on general practice began when Peter Dutton was Health Minister and he tried to do away with bulk billing by introducing a fee on every single visit to the GP, and then started a six-year freeze on Medicare rebates," Mr Butler said.
"The Albanese Government committed to making it easier for people to see a bulk billing doctor - and that is exactly what is happening right around the country, particularly in rural and regional Australia."
The GP bulk billing rate measures the proportion of all GP visits under Medicare that involved no patient payment.
In Tasmania, that rate was at 66.3 per cent in October last year - prior to the introduction of the boosted bulk billing incentives.
Since then, the rate has climbed to 74.4 per cent - the biggest increase of any state.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Tasmanian chair Dr Toby Gardner said more investment in Medicare was needed, but the change had seen positive results in his practice.
"The tripling of the incentive makes it something that we can actually absorb," he said.
He said rising costs of running clinics but static Medicare rebates was among the reasons for the precipitous decline in bulk billing in Tasmania.
"Previously we weren't being able to absorb the cost of bulk billing seeing patients, hence the reason that the prevailing rates dropped so low in Tassie.
"We'd still like to see further investment in Medicare, and we've asked them to further index the longer consults because people are presenting with more complex chronic conditions."
Tasmanian Liberal Senator Jonathon Duniam said Labor's "skewing of numbers" over bulk billing was no comfort to Tasmanians finding it tough to afford a doctor's visit.
"Tasmania has some of the lowest bulk billing rates and the highest average out of pocket costs across Australia. Labor can't pretend that everything is hunky dory when it is clearly not," Senator Duniam said.
"The Coalition's policies in government led to record bulk billing levels but today, two years into a Labor Government, you'd be hard pressed to find any GP clinic that is bulk-billing in Tasmania."
The Australian Medical Association has previously blamed both sides of federal politics for underinvestment in Medicare.
