GP Recruitment

Why a GP who does home visits is building a practice for 2026 — not 2010

Australia's population is ageing. The chronic disease burden is growing. Bulk billing is declining. The clinic model is under structural pressure from every direction. A GP building a home visit practice in 2026 is not going against the grain — they are positioning for where the primary care system is already heading. The data. Sources at the end.

The demographic reality

AIHW data shows that 95% of older Australians see a GP, and people aged 65 and over generated 43 million Medicare claims for unreferred GP attendances in 2019-20 — 30% of all such claims nationally. Australia's population is ageing at a documented rate, and the oldest cohorts see GPs significantly more frequently than the general population.

The Department of Health's 2024 GP Supply and Demand Study projects that GP FTE unmet demand will increase nationally as the population ages and GP workforce FTE per practitioner declines. The supply of GP services is not keeping pace with the demand driven by an ageing, increasingly chronic-disease-burdened population. That gap is where home visiting operates.

The chronic disease trajectory

According to the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 1 in 2 Australians already has at least one chronic condition — 15 million people. AIHW's chronic conditions analysis notes that Australia's ageing population presents additional challenges through increasing demand for services to support people with chronic conditions — and that the use of Medicare-subsidised GP services per person is increasing as a direct result. The chronic disease cohort is not static. It grows with every year of population ageing.

The bulk billing trajectory

The Medicare Statistics show the GP bulk billing rate has fallen from 88.9% in 2020-21 to 77.9% in 2024-25 — a decline of 11 percentage points in four years despite three rounds of government incentive programs. According to IBISWorld, the industry is under significant financial pressure as the gap between government rebates and practice costs continues to widen. The economics of bulk billing are not improving. The private billing model — which is the only model that makes daytime home visiting financially viable — is the direction the market is already moving.

The continuity of care evidence

Research published by Flinders University's ROSA Research Centre in 2026, analysing 120,000+ older Australians receiving home care, found that those who continued seeing their usual GP had an 18–28% lower risk of hospitalisation compared with those who saw new doctors frequently. The home visiting model — where a GP builds an ongoing relationship with a patient in their home — is the model the evidence identifies as producing the best outcomes for the fastest-growing patient cohort in Australian primary care.

The first-mover advantage

Perth Home GP — the only daytime private home visit service operating at scale in Australia — pays home visiting GPs $300–$325 per hour take-home, with a $250 per hour minimum guarantee for the first three months. This is what the private billing model delivers when bulk billing economics are removed from the equation. Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Adelaide have no equivalent service. A GP who joins C.A.L.L.S now is entering a market with documented patient demand, growing demographic tailwinds, no national competition, and a platform built specifically to handle the operational complexity of home visiting so the GP can focus on the medicine.

The question is not whether the market for daytime GP home visits in Australia will exist. The data shows it already does. The question is who will be established in it when the rest of the market catches up.