Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
The Medicare rebate is shrinking. The marketing has to do more of the work.
Australian general practice is in a structural squeeze: the Item 23 standard consult rebate ($42.85) hasn't kept pace with the cost of running a practice for over a decade, mixed-billing is now the only viable model for most practices, and patients arrive expecting a bulk-bill conversation they don't get. The corporate chains (IPN, Sonic, ForHealth) outspend independents on local search; HotDoc and HealthEngine intercept the booking before the patient ever reaches the practice site; and the special-interest revenue lines that actually pay (skin-cancer clinic Item 30192, GPMP Item 721, TCA Item 723, MHCP Item 2715) need their own positioning that almost no GP practice marketing does. The principal GP can't fix any of this at 8pm after a 28-patient day.
Good GP marketing is three things, in this order: a billing-transparent home page that answers bulk-bill-versus-mixed-billing in the first scroll (so the front desk stops fielding the same question forty times a day), a special-interest page library for the revenue lines that actually pay (skin-cancer clinic, women's health, chronic-disease management, travel medicine, paediatric) so you rank for the searches that have intent and an MBS item behind them, and a complete Google Business Profile with the right primary category, 24/7 / after-hours / Saturday attributes, every service category ticked, and 'accepts new patients' switched on. The corporate chains in the same suburb do this with a worse clinical product. The work is just being present with a better one.
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Sets the plan around the special-interest revenue lines that actually grow the practice (skin-cancer clinic, women's health, chronic-disease GPMP, travel medicine) rather than chasing every 'GP near me' search you'll lose to the corporate chain on the next corner. Briefs the other agents so the specialty pages, the billing-transparent home page, the AHPRA-compliant patient education and the recall reminders all push the right patient toward the right MBS item.
Imports your existing site, ships a special-interest page library for every revenue line, answers bulk-bill-versus-mixed-billing honestly in the first scroll, and keeps the GP bios and special-interest pages current. HotDoc, HealthEngine, AutoMed or Hot Doc booking widget re-embedded on every relevant page.
Owns whether you appear in the map pack for '[suburb] GP', 'bulk billing doctor [suburb]', 'skin check [suburb]' and the special-interest searches. Complete Google Business Profile, GeneralPractitioner schema, RACGP / AGPAL accreditation badges where you have them, internal links from suburbs to specialty pages, and the technical fixes that keep you indexed. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes.
Runs Google Ads on the special-interest searches (skin check, women's health, travel medicine, GPMP for diabetes) where the corporate chains don't compete and the rebate-plus-gap economics actually pay. Never bids on 'free GP' or 'bulk bill near me' broad terms; the corporate chain budget owns those. A small Meta retargeting layer catches the chronic-disease browser who hasn't booked.
Posts AHPRA-compliant patient education in your real accounts: a skin-check reminder for summer, a flu-shot post in March, an explainer on the GPMP for type 2 diabetes, a women's-health-week post in September. No testimonials, no comparative claims, no before-and-after of patients. You approve in two taps, the agent learns your hard nos in the first week.
Drafts the patient-education long-form that ranks for the questions patients Google before they book: 'how often should I have a skin check', 'what is included in a Medicare GP management plan', 'do I need a referral for a cervical screen'. Two drafts a month, in your voice, that bring the chronic-disease and preventive patient to your site before they need you.
Your first 30 days.
- Existing Squarespace or Wix site imported, hosting torn down; Best Practice or Medical Director clinical stays untouched
- Special-interest revenue plan set by Sam against the GPs on the roster (skin cancer, women's health, chronic disease, travel, paediatric)
- Bulk-bill-versus-mixed-billing surfaced honestly on the home page, plus a billing FAQ that answers the gap-fee question once
- Skin-cancer clinic, women's health, chronic-disease management and travel-medicine special-interest pages drafted, indexed and ranking page 1 for '[specialty] [suburb]'
- Google Business Profile category corrected to 'General practitioner', services expanded from 4 to 24, 'accepts new patients' switched on, Saturday hours added
- AHPRA-compliant patient-education cadence queued in the GP's voice for the next fortnight, ready for two-tap approval
- Best Practice or Medical Director recall reminders wired for GPMP, MHCP, cervical screening, skin checks and annual diabetes reviews
- Workforce-restriction status (DPA, MM 1-7, DWS) surfaced honestly on the doctors-page for any IMG or registrar on the roster
General practice is a structural margin squeeze that won't end. The clinics that grow are the ones that stop chasing the bulk-bill 'GP near me' search they can't win against the corporate chain and start owning the special-interest revenue lines that actually pay: skin-cancer clinic, chronic-disease management, women's health, travel medicine, paediatric. The marketing layer for this is a special-interest page library, an AHPRA-compliant content cadence, and a recall reminder engine that fills the Saturday morning and the chronic-disease review slot every week. Almost nobody runs it because the principal GP doesn't have an hour at 8pm for marketing.
Agencies are too dear to run this work for $3.5k a month and most don't know the AHPRA rules. Tools are cheap but the skin-cancer clinic page never gets built. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the specialty pages, draft the patient education, fix the Google Business Profile, and wire the recall reminders. AHPRA-compliant by construction, two taps to approve, minutes a day.