Now lawHealth & Care Introduced in the House of Representatives, 24 Jul 2025

Pathology labs no longer pay Medicare approval fees

Labs that do medical tests used to pay fees to get approved for Medicare. The fees were set in 1991 and never changed. This law scraps them and gives refunds for approvals starting on or after 1 July 2025.

Official name: Health Insurance (Pathology) (Fees) (Repeal) Bill 2025

Who it affects

• Pathology companies and labs: They no longer pay a fee when they ask to be approved for Medicare.
• Pathologists: They no longer pay a fee to become an approved lab doctor.
• Patients: The quality rules for Medicare lab tests stay the same.
• The federal budget: It loses about $824,000 a year in fees.

Lab fees unchanged since 1991

Pathology means medical tests on things like blood and urine. Medicare is the public health scheme that helps pay for health care. It only pays for a lab test if three approvals are in place.

The doctor who runs the tests must be an approved pathology practitioner. The business that runs the lab must be an approved pathology authority. The lab itself must be an accredited pathology laboratory. That means the government has checked it and said it is up to standard.

These approvals let Services Australia list a lab as allowed to charge Medicare. Services Australia is the agency that runs Medicare payments.

Since 1991 a separate law has charged a fee for each approval. It is called the Health Insurance (Pathology) (Fees) Act 1991. The fees were never looked at again or changed.

In 2022 a review of health charges looked at them. It found the fees were well above what it costs the government to do the paperwork.

Government rules say a fee should match the cost of the service. So the government decided to remove these fees. Health Minister Mark Butler brought the bill to Parliament.

Fee laws scrapped

The bill cancels the whole 1991 fees law. It also cancels a 2015 law that made those fees apply on Norfolk Island too. Norfolk Island is a small Australian island in the Pacific Ocean.

Medicare law tidied up

The bill then takes every mention of these fees out of the Health Insurance Act 1973. That is the main law for Medicare.

Before, a lab doctor or lab business had to pay a fee within 14 days. The clock started when the minister said yes to their form. If they did not pay, the minister could cancel the approval. That rule and that power are gone.

For labs, the old law had two steps. First came an early yes, called an approval in principle. Then a second fee was paid to finish the approval. Now the minister just says yes or no to the lab, in writing.

When the minister says yes, they must tell the person three things. They must say when the approval starts, how long it lasts and how to ask for a review.

People can still appeal to the Administrative Review Tribunal. It is a body that checks government decisions, like a court but less formal.

Say you open a new lab in a country town. You still have to meet the same quality rules. You just do not pay the old fee to get approved.

Refunds for fees paid

No fees are due for any approval that starts on or after 1 July 2025.

Some people paid a fee before the law began, for an approval that starts on or after 1 July 2025. The federal government must pay them back in full.

Start date

The bill was brought to the House of Representatives on 24 July 2025. The House passed it on 30 July 2025. The Senate passed it on 1 September 2025 with no changes. The Senate is the second house of Parliament, which checks bills.

The Governor-General signed it into law on 4 September 2025. The Governor-General is the King's stand-in in Australia. It became Act No. 40 of 2025.

It started the next day. The end of the fees reaches back to approvals from 1 July 2025.

Its journey through Parliament

Official sources

• Bill page on aph.gov.au
• Text of the bill
• Explanatory memorandum

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