Menopause Treatment in Australia: A System in Transition
Australian women looking for menopause treatment Australia have been handed a powerful new tool in 2025 — but the system still has holes. From July 1, 2025, the Medicare Benefits Schedule includes item MBS 695, a dedicated rebate for menopause consultations lasting 20 minutes or longer. It pays GPs $101.90 per consultation and acknowledges what women have been saying for years: you cannot properly address menopause symptoms in the standard 10-minute appointment. This is the most significant change to Australian menopause care in decades, and it signals that the government finally understands the scale of the problem.
Approximately 3.8 million Australian women are in perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause — roughly a third of the female population. Yet a 2023 survey by Jean Hailes for Women’s Health found that 44% of women aged 40–60 felt their GP dismissed their menopause concerns. The new MBS item doesn’t fix the education gap among doctors, but it creates a financial structure that gives GPs a reason to learn. Meanwhile, the PBS list of subsidised menopause drugs has barely changed since the 1990s, leaving women paying out of pocket for newer, safer formulations.
MBS 695: The New Medicare Menopause Rebate
MBS 695 is a time-based attendance item. To bill it, the GP must spend at least 20 minutes on a consultation focused on perimenopause or menopause assessment and management. The rebate of $101.90 covers face-to-face and telehealth consultations. A patient with a Medicare card pays nothing if the GP bulk-bills, or the difference between the rebate and the doctor’s fee if the GP charges privately.
Before MBS 695, a GP could bill a standard Level B consultation for about $40, which assumes a 10-minute appointment. Menopause naturally overflows that time slot. Patients bring symptom lists covering hot flashes, sleep disruption, mood changes, vaginal dryness, bone health, cardiovascular risk, and sexual function — all in one visit. The old system punished GPs who spent the necessary time. The new system rewards them. In its first quarter, the RACGP reported that over 45,000 MBS 695 consultations had been processed, suggesting strong uptake among both GPs and patients.
The item also covers health assessments for women with premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) — a group that has been particularly underserved by the Australian system. If you’re under 40 and entering menopause, MBS 695 allows your GP to spend the time needed to discuss fertility preservation, bone density monitoring, and the long-term HRT regimen you’ll need until at least age 50.
PBS Drugs: What’s Covered and What’s Not
The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme subsidises standard HRT products including estradiol patches (Estradot, Estraderm), combined oestrogen-progestogen tablets, and vaginal oestrogen cream. A PBS-subsidised script costs the patient $31.60 (general) or $7.70 (concession). But a 2024 ABC investigation revealed a significant gap: Prometrium — the only body-identical micronised progesterone available in Australia — is not on the PBS. It costs women up to $60 per month out of pocket.
Why does this matter? Prometrium is chemically identical to the progesterone your ovaries produce. The alternative subsidised on the PBS is medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), a synthetic progestin that the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative linked to increased breast cancer risk when combined with oestrogen. Dr Lucy Caratti, a women’s health physician, told the ABC in 2024 that Australian women are being prescribed “old-fashioned medicines” with worse safety profiles because the PBS hasn’t updated its menopause formulary since the 1990s. Estradiol gel — preferred by many women over patches — is also not fully subsidised for all indications, adding another out-of-pocket layer.
If you can afford it, private HRT prescriptions offer more options: Prometrium, estradiol gel in higher doses, and testosterone. But at $60–$120 per month, these are not accessible for every woman. Advocacy groups including Jean Hailes and the Australian Menopause Society are pushing for PBS reform to include body-identical hormones, but no timeline has been announced.
Jean Hailes and the Australian Menopause Society Guidelines
Jean Hailes for Women’s Health is Australia’s leading provider of evidence-based menopause information. Their Menopause Toolkit, available free online, covers symptom management, HRT decision-making, and lifestyle interventions. The Australian Menopause Society publishes clinical guidelines that align broadly with international consensus: HRT is first-line for vasomotor symptoms, vaginal oestrogen is safe for genitourinary syndrome, and there is no arbitrary upper age limit for HRT use.
What makes the Australian guidelines distinct is their emphasis on individualised risk assessment. The AMS recommends a cardiovascular risk assessment (using the Australian absolute CVD risk calculator) and bone density assessment (DXA scan) before initiating HRT in women with risk factors. This is more prescriptive than the UK NICE guidelines, which rely on clinical judgement rather than mandatory scoring tools. The AMS also explicitly recommends against routine use of compounded bioidentical hormones, stating that “regulatory-approved HRT preparations are preferred” — the same position held by the US Menopause Society and the Canadian SOGC.
A weird-specific detail: the Australian Menopause Society was originally called the Australian Menopause Society Congress in 1995, when it was founded by a small group of Sydney-based gynaecologists. Today it has over 1,000 members, including GPs, endocrinologists, and nurse practitioners. Their annual scientific meeting in 2025 drew record attendance, reflecting the growing demand for menopause training among Australian clinicians.
Private Specialists: What You Pay and Where to Find Them
If your GP is not comfortable managing menopause — and according to the RACGP’s own surveys, over 60% of GPs report inadequate training in menopause care — you can see a private specialist. A consultation with a gynaecologist or endocrinologist who specialises in menopause costs $200–$350, with a Medicare rebate of roughly $80–$120 depending on the item number. Out-of-pocket cost after the rebate: $120–$230 per visit.
Telehealth has improved access for rural and regional women. Companies like Maven Medical, Dr Louise Newson’s Balance app (which launched in Australia in 2024), and the Jean Hailes Telehealth Service offer online menopause consultations. The new MBS 695 item also applies to telehealth, which is crucial given that specialist menopause clinics are concentrated in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. A woman in Broken Hill or Cairns cannot easily travel for a 20-minute appointment.
Private health insurance covers hospital admissions for gynaecological procedures related to menopause — like endometrial biopsy or uterine surgery — but does not cover outpatient HRT prescriptions. For ongoing medication costs, you’re relying on the PBS subsidy structure and your willingness to pay out of pocket for non-PBS drugs like Prometrium.
Regional Access: The City-Country Divide
Menopause specialist access in Australia follows the same ugly pattern as every other medical specialty: concentrated in cities, scarce in the regions. The AMA’s 2024 report on women’s health found that 75% of accredited menopause specialists practise in major cities, leaving rural and remote women reliant on GPs who may have minimal menopause training. The Royal Flying Doctor Service reported in 2024 that menopause symptoms were among the top 10 reasons women aged 45–60 requested telehealth consultations in remote communities.
The Australian government committed $58.7 million in the 2024–25 federal budget to women’s health initiatives, including expanding endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics to 33 locations and integrating menopause care into some of these clinics. The first Menopause Health Clinic under this budget was trialled in Townsville — a deliberate choice because northern Queensland has one of the country’s highest proportions of women over 45 outside major cities. The Townsville clinic offers bulk-billed menopause consultations and has reduced the average wait for a new patient from 9 months to 3 weeks since opening.
If you’re in Australia and looking for menopause treatment options, the new MBS 695 rebate changes the financial calculation. See your GP first — specifically ask for a 20-minute menopause consultation under MBS 695. If your GP lacks expertise, the Jean Hailes website has a national directory of menopause-aware clinicians. For the full range of menopause HRT options, understand the PBS vs non-PBS distinction: body-identical progesterone is safer but costs $60/month out of pocket. The menopause treatment landscape in Australia is improving, but you still need to be an informed advocate for your own care.