Medicare Assignment of Benefits (AoB) changes

💡 From 1 July 2026, Medicare is expanding electronic Assignment of Benefit (AoB) beyond Telehealth. This change is primarily about patient consent and auditability - making sure consent is clearly captured, attributable, retained, and can be evidenced if required.

Important for practices

Healthengine supports post-service digital AoB consent in this release.
Pre-service AoB is not included in this release.
Bulk Billing Consent is currently supported only with Best Practice and Pracsoft.
Consent requests are sent after the invoice is generated in your PMS via SMS and email.

Who this article is for

This article is for practices using Healthengine Bulk Billing Consent / Medicare AoB.

What’s changing from 1 July 2026

Digital consent is allowed beyond Telehealth
1. Medicare is expanding electronic AoB so practices can capture consent digitally beyond telehealth. Digital consent can sit alongside paper-based workflows depending on the solution your practice uses.
Stronger focus on auditability
1. Consent must be properly recorded, attributable to the correct person, retained, and retrievable if required.
You may see new terms in your billing software
1. Depending on your PMS and vendor updates, you may see concepts such as:

1. 1. Pre-service assignment of benefit (pre-assignment)
  2. Basic Service Description (used for pre-service assignments)
  3. “Pending” AoB / pending consent statuses
2. These terms may appear in PMS workflows even if your practice chooses not to use every workflow type.

What’s not changing

The underlying Medicare claiming process isn’t intended to change. This reform is about AoB / consent requirements, not claiming mechanics.
Patient consent for bulk billing is already required today. The reform modernises how consent can be captured and evidenced.

How Healthengine is supporting practices

Healthengine is updating our existing Bulk Billing Consent / AoB workflow so practices can capture consent digitally for any appointment type (not just telehealth), aligned to the new requirements.

Key points about our workflow

Consent requests are sent via SMS and email.
Post-service only (this release): Healthengine will send the consent request after the invoice is generated in your PMS.
This is an episodic agreement for that specific service/encounter.
We are updating wording and setup to remove any “telehealth-only” language and make it clear this is for post-service Medicare AoB consent.

What this means for Telehealth

Healthengine’s current AoB support for telehealth remains a post-service workflow. After the appointment is completed and the invoice is generated in the PMS, Healthengine sends the consent request via SMS and email.

Pre-service telehealth AoB is not part of this release.

Consent form updates (dataset changes)

To meet the updated Medicare AoB dataset requirements, we’re updating the consent form to include the additional question:

“Is the assignor the patient?” (Yes / No)

If No, we’ll capture the required assignor details.

What the patient will see (consent wording)

If the assignor agrees to the assignment of the Medicare benefit (bulk bill) directly to the health professional, the patient selects the “I agree” button.

We’re updating the form so:

The Submit action becomes “I agree”
Additional checkbox steps are removed

Where practices manage consent

In Practice Admin, you’ll be able to view and manage Bulk Billing Consent including:

Last sent date and time (new)
Contact attempts (new)
Summary stats at the top of the page (e.g. Sent, Accepted, Expired) (new)

Appointment type configuration (new)

You’ll be able to send a digital Medicare AoB (post-service) for:

All appointment types, or
Specific appointment types you select

This configuration is found in Practice Admin under:

Post-service assignment preferences (renamed from Preferences)

Automated reminders (new)

Practices will have a setting to automatically resend a reminder after 24 hours if no response is received.

Pre-service consent (future)

In future, we’ll look to support pre-assignment (pre-service consent) as we understand the convenience this can provide for certain appointments (including Telehealth).

What you need to do now

Review your billing workflow
1. Review your end-of-day billing process and any internal sign-off steps before batching.
Prepare patients for the change
1. Many patients won’t be aware of this change. Setting expectations early can reduce inaction or concerns about scams.
2. Suggested wording for practices:
  After your appointment, you may receive an SMS or email from Healthengine asking you to confirm your Medicare Assignment of Benefit so we can complete your bulk billing. This is part of our normal billing process.
Update Best Practice settings (if applicable)
1. Best Practice is introducing a new setting that indicates whether AoB forms are managed:
  1. Within Best Practice (BP prints/SMS and manages), or
  2. Externally (e.g. Healthengine-managed)
2. If you want Healthengine to manage your AoB consent collection, you will generally select Managed externally in Best Practice so BP does not generate the form itself.
Confirm which workflow you want to use:
1. If you want Best Practice to create and manage the AoB form itself: Managed within Best Practice
2. If you want Healthengine to send the post-service SMS/email AoB request: Managed externally

Best Practice & Pracsoft workflow notes

Best Practice

Once consent is completed, the AoB status in Best Practice will update from Pending → Accepted.
This allows the claim to appear in the Online Claiming list.

Important: In Best Practice, “Generate & store” does not submit the claim to Medicare immediately - it stores the invoice so it can be included in the next Online Claiming batch.

Pracsoft

For Pracsoft workflows integrated with our bulk billing consent product, we’ll continue to use the existing Bulk Billing Consent workflow and send a PDF copy of the completed consent back to your PMS.

Common questions

Does this apply only to telehealth?

No. From 1 July 2026, the change extends electronic AoB beyond telehealth.

Does Healthengine support pre-service AoB from 1 July?

No. Healthengine’s support in this release is post-service only.

How does this work for telehealth appointments today?

What if the patient does not agree to assign their Medicare benefit?

If the patient does not agree to assign their Medicare benefit, they should be privately billed and provided with an invoice to enable them to claim their Medicare benefit from Services Australia.

In a pre-assignment scenario, the patient may choose not to assign their Medicare benefits initially, opting instead to make this decision after services have been provided. If the patient ultimately declines to assign their Medicare benefits, they will be responsible for the out-of-pocket payment.

When are the changes going live?

Best Practice will make the production version of the new stored procedures available on 1 July. All wording changes will be deployed before then, but the ability to update the status in Best Practice will only be available from 1 July.

Will we have the option to select All appointment types instead of selecting one at a time?

Yes - we are changing the appointment type selection to include an All option.

If a Medicare Assignment of Benefit link has expired, can the practice send a new one (or resend it)?

Practices will have the option to send an automated reminder after 24 hours if no response is received. Practices can also resend the link from Practice Admin → Bulk billing consent.

Will practices be able to manually send consent messages via SMS and/or email?

No - a consent form is only generated once an invoice is created and stored in the PMS.

How long after a visit is finalised do we send the SMS today?

We currently receive the consent request from the PMS via a snapshot generated every 15 minutes. Depending on where the request falls in the cycle, the SMS may be sent within seconds or up to 15 minutes later. We’re discussing changes to move to a more real-time approach.

Some patients can’t access the form (possibly failing verification). Can we provide troubleshooting steps?

Yes - we can create a troubleshooting guide.

If the patient still can’t open the consent link, can we provide instructions for how the patient can contact us for support?

Yes - we can provide patient-facing support instructions.

In the current AoB flow, practices can resend after 12 hours, and some think the link expires after ~72 hours. Will those rules stay the same?

The link currently expires after 1 week. We can extend this, as legislation allows patients up to a year to provide consent and for a practice to submit the claim.

Will we display stats for Sent vs Accepted vs Expired etc?

Yes - we are adding stats at the top of the Bulk bill consent page. We’re also adding a Last sent date and time and a number of contact attempts column.

MBS item change re-consent: What happens if the GP changes the MBS item after the patient has consented?

If the issue is identified early, the invoice is typically deleted and re-created. In that scenario, a new consent request will be sent when the practice selects Generate and store for the new invoice.
If the invoice has already been generated and stored and the claim is later rejected, the practice will usually update and resubmit the existing invoice. We are reviewing whether Best Practice will be able to notify us of this so that we can generate a new AoB.

PMS coverage beyond BP and Pracsoft

Bulk Billing Consent is currently only supported with Best Practice and Pracsoft.

“Managed externally” risk: what happens if Healthengine SMS fails to deliver, the patient doesn’t respond, or the integration is down?

We send the consent form via both SMS and email to maximise reach. Practices can also manually resend the consent request in Healthengine Practice Admin. If a practice prefers, they can continue managing AoB directly in Best Practice - “Managed externally” is optional and provides an alternative workflow.

How do you verify the person clicking the link is the assignor?

Patient verification is required. We comply with the RACGP Standards for General Practices (5th edition) and require three points of identification before the form is displayed.

Is there an additional fee for Bulk Billing Consent / AoB?

Bulk Billing Consent is included in our GP Complete and GP Complete Plus subscriptions. We do not currently charge additional SMS fees.

Need help?

If you’re unsure which setup option is best for your workflow, contact your dedicated Healthengine Customer Success Manager and they’ll assist. Or you may reach out to our Customer Support Team (check here)

Medicare Assignment of Benefits (AoB) changes - 1 July 2026