Why do female GPs earn less if they see the same number of patients?

Female GPs see approximately 22 patients per day versus 26 for male GPs, and conduct longer consultations for each one. The consultations female GPs disproportionately conduct — mental health, women's health, medically complex multimorbid presentations — attract lower Medicare rebates than briefer encounters. The Medicare rebate structure rewards throughput and procedure over duration and cognitive complexity. The gap is not explained by hours worked or qualification level; it is explained by what gets paid for and what doesn't.

How did November 2025 Medicare changes make the gap worse?

The rebate gap between male and female GPs sat at approximately 1% before the November 2025 Medicare changes. Following those changes, analysis by Professor Louise Stone found the gap grew to 8%. The specific mechanism is rebate restructuring that reduced relative reimbursement for the longer consultation types female GPs disproportionately conduct. The effect was not the stated policy intent, but it is the measurable outcome.

The GP gender pay gap just got wider — and Medicare is why

What just happened

Professor Louise Stone, writing in The Medical Republic today, has delivered what the headline promises: a clear account of Australia’s GP gender pay gap, where the numbers come from, and why the usual objections to those numbers do not change the underlying reality.

The gap exists and runs in one direction: female GPs are financially worse off. ATO income data from 2022–23 put average GP incomes at $226,927 for men and $171,087 for women — a 26% gap. Stone’s analysis goes further: the November 2025 Medicare changes widened the rebate-level gap from approximately 1% to 8%.

This is a workforce story. It is also a patient story. And the connection between the two is the part that rarely gets named.

Both-and

The numbers are consistent regardless of methodology

Part of what makes Stone’s piece worth reading is how she handles the methodological arguments. The GP gender pay gap persists regardless of how the data is cut — adjusted or unadjusted, full-time or hours-equivalent, raw income or rebate data. The conclusion always runs the same direction: women GPs earn less.

The mechanism is structural, not individual. Female GPs conduct approximately 22 patient consultations per day, versus 26 for male GPs. They see fewer patients because their consultations are longer — and those longer consultations are concentrated in exactly the areas of clinical work that are hardest and most valued by patients, and least rewarded by the Medicare rebate schedule: mental health presentations, women’s health, medically complex patients with multiple chronic conditions.

The Medicare system, as Stone documents, pays more for briefer encounters and procedural work than for cognitively complex longitudinal care. It is not designed to be discriminatory. But the practical effect of not adequately valuing complexity and duration — and female GPs disproportionately providing the kinds of care that are complex and time-intensive — is a gender pay gap that compounds across careers.

What the November 2025 changes actually did

The rebate restructuring that came into effect in November 2025 widened the gap. Before the changes, rebate-level analysis placed the gender differential at approximately 1%. Stone’s analysis, using the same methodology applied to the post-November data, places it at 8%.

This outcome was not the stated intent of the changes. But it is the measurable outcome, and it represents a significant acceleration of a pre-existing structural problem.

The policy fix Stone identifies is direct: per-minute subsidies for consultation types regardless of clinical complexity. Pay the same amount per minute of consultation whether the encounter is a quick script review or a 40-minute complex mental health presentation. The current system creates a financial incentive to see more patients briefly, rather than fewer patients well.

The patient-facing consequences

This is where the workforce story becomes a patient story.

The patient who has been dismissed by three GPs in six months and is still looking for one who will spend more than eight minutes with them — this is the downstream effect of a rebate structure that does not reward time. The GP who cannot afford to run a longer-than-average consultation list has a financial rationale for not doing so, even if that is not how it is consciously framed.

Female GPs — who, as Stone’s data shows, are the practitioners most likely to spend that time, particularly on the presentations most likely to be dismissed or undermanaged in briefer encounters — are being systematically undercompensated for that work. Some exit general practice for higher-paying specialties. Others restrict their caseloads to remain financially viable. Others absorb the gap and work unsustainably.

The patient who says “I can’t find a GP who will listen” is, among other things, experiencing the downstream consequence of a rebate system that has not adequately valued listening.

The broader health-sector comparison is useful context: gender pay gaps persist across pathology, dentistry, nursing, and most non-healthcare professions. Stone cites a 40% gap in rocket science as a benchmark. These are occupational patterns, not individual shortfalls.

The legitimacy of naming structural limits

The drhblo.com frame on the health system is consistent: the system caters for what works for most people, most of the time, most efficiently. It is not designed for complexity. The people inside it are often doing good work within structural constraints they did not design.

The gender pay gap in general practice is one of those structural constraints. The GPs who are providing the kind of care that is hardest to replace — the long consultations, the mental health work, the multimorbid complexity — are the practitioners who are being most systematically undercompensated. That has consequences for which practitioners stay in general practice, and what kind of care remains accessible in general practice over time.

My two cents

There is a version of this story that is purely about workplace fairness for doctors, which is a legitimate story in its own right. There is also a version that is about what the rebate structure signals about what general practice is for — and what that means for the patient whose case is complex, time-consuming, and does not fit a six-minute consultation.

Stone’s analysis is careful and evidence-based. The 26% income gap is not in dispute. The November 2025 widening of the rebate-level gap from 1% to 8% is a specific, dateable policy outcome with a measurable consequence.

What would change it: per-minute rebate equity across consultation types. That would require a policy decision, and it has not been made. What can be named now is that the current structure creates financial disincentives for the kind of clinical work that the most underserved patients most need — and that the practitioners most likely to provide that work are female GPs who are already paid less for it.

The system is not broken. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do. The question is whether what it was designed to do aligns with what the patient in the waiting room needs.

Verdict: yes — the GP gender pay gap is structural, documented, and has just been widened by a specific policy change. Worth understanding as context for why complex care is hard to access, and why the practitioners providing it are leaving or restricting their caseloads.

Sources cited

Stone L. The GP gender pay gap, once and for all. The Medical Republic, 1 August 2026. https://www.medicalrepublic.com.au/the-gp-gender-pay-gap-once-and-for-all/127816