You hurt your back lifting a suitcase, or your shoulder stops working properly after a shift, and someone tells you to see a physiotherapist. Then comes the question nobody explains when you arrive in Australia: will this cost me anything, and who is supposed to pay?

Australia has several systems that pay for healthcare, and they do not overlap the way most people assume. Which one applies to you depends on your visa, not on how sick you are. This page explains all of them in plain English.

The short answer

  • Medicare is the government system. Most student and temporary visa holders cannot use it, and even people who can use it do not normally get physiotherapy paid for.
  • Private health insurance comes in two separate halves. Only one of them — the half called extras — pays for physiotherapy.
  • OSHC is the insurance you are required to hold on a student visa. It usually does not include physiotherapy.
  • OVHC is the same idea for other temporary visas. The cheaper versions usually do not include physiotherapy either.
  • If none of those cover you, you pay for the appointment yourself. That is normal and it is what a lot of people do.

The rest of this page explains why, so you can work out which one you are in.

What Medicare is

Medicare is Australia's public health system. It is paid for through tax. It covers a large part of the cost of seeing a GP (a family doctor), treatment in a public hospital, and many tests and scans.

Who can use Medicare

Australian citizens and permanent residents. Also people from eleven countries that have a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement with Australia — the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Slovenia, Malta, Italy and Finland — but only for treatment that cannot wait until you go home, and in some cases only for a limited period.

If you are here on a student visa, a working holiday visa, a graduate visa or a visitor visa and you are not from one of those countries, you do not have Medicare.

Medicare does not usually pay for physiotherapy

This surprises almost everyone, including Australians. Medicare is built mainly around doctors and hospitals. Physiotherapy, dentistry, glasses, psychology and podiatry sit outside it.

There is one well-known exception. If a GP decides you have a long-term health condition — something that has been going on for six months or more, or is expected to — they can put you on a Chronic Condition Management Plan. That plan can include up to five allied health appointments in a calendar year, shared across every kind of allied health, not five of each.

At our clinic those care plan sessions are bulk billed in full, so there is nothing to pay on the day. But you need Medicare to get one, which is exactly what most people reading this do not have.

What private health insurance is

Private health insurance in Australia is something you buy separately, from a company, on top of Medicare. This is the part that trips people up:

It is really two different products

  • Hospital cover pays towards being admitted to a private hospital — an operation, a private room, choosing your own surgeon. It does not pay for a physiotherapy appointment in a clinic.
  • Extras cover (you will also see it called general treatment or ancillary) pays towards the things Medicare leaves out: dental, optical, physiotherapy, chiropractic, psychology, remedial massage.

Physiotherapy in a clinic is paid by extras cover, not by hospital cover. Someone can hold expensive private health insurance for years and have no physiotherapy benefit at all, because they only bought the hospital half. We explain how extras works in detail in a separate post on extras cover.

What OSHC is

Overseas Student Health Cover. If you hold a student visa (subclass 500) you are required to have it for the whole length of your visa. You most likely bought it at the same time as you applied, possibly through your education agent, and you may never have looked at the policy.

OSHC usually covers seeing a GP, treatment in hospital, an ambulance, and some prescription medicines up to a limit. It usually does not cover physiotherapy.

There is more detail, including how to check your own policy, in our guide to OSHC and physiotherapy.

What OVHC is

Overseas Visitor Health Cover. Same idea, for temporary visa holders who are not students — skilled work visas, temporary graduate visas, working holiday visas, and visitors. Some visas carry a condition requiring you to hold it.

Budget OVHC policies behave like OSHC: hospital and medical, no physiotherapy. Mid-range and higher policies often bundle extras in, and those do pay for physiotherapy.

Why physio is left out of OSHC and OVHC

It is not an oversight, and it is not the insurer being difficult. It follows from what these products are for.

OSHC and OVHC exist to stand in for Medicare for people who cannot access it. So they are built to cover roughly what Medicare covers. Medicare does not fund ordinary physiotherapy appointments. Therefore neither do they.

Physiotherapy sits in the extras category for everybody in Australia — citizens included. Australians who want their physio subsidised buy extras cover to get it. The same is true for you.

So what will you actually pay?

Working through it in order:

  • You have extras cover (on its own, or built into an OSHC or OVHC policy). Bring the card. The rebate comes off at reception through HICAPS and you pay only the difference.
  • You have Medicare and a GP care plan. Bring the referral. We bulk bill those sessions in full.
  • You were hurt at work as an employee. This usually goes through ReturnToWorkSA rather than through you.
  • You were hurt in a car accident in South Australia. Compulsory Third Party insurance may cover the treatment.
  • You are an NDIS participant or a DVA card holder. There are separate pages for NDIS and DVA.
  • None of the above. You pay for the appointment yourself. Our current fees are on the payment options page, and new patients can currently see our physiotherapist Saloni for a reduced initial consultation — conditions are on the new patient offer page.

How to check your own cover in five minutes

Do not guess, and do not rely on what a friend on a different policy tells you. Find the card or the certificate your insurer sent you, then either log into their app or ring the number on the card and ask exactly these questions:

  • “Does my policy include extras, also called general treatment?”
  • “Is physiotherapy included, and how much do I get back for one appointment?”
  • “Is there a waiting period, and have I already served it?”
  • “How much of my annual limit is left this year?”

Write the answers down. Those four answers tell you what a physiotherapy appointment will cost you, and they are the same four questions whether you hold OSHC, OVHC or an ordinary Australian policy.

If explaining this in English is hard

It is a lot of vocabulary to learn at once, in a system nobody grew up inside. Between us our physiotherapists speak English, Hindi and Gujarati, and you can ask for whoever you would rather talk to when you book — see languages we speak.

You do not need a referral from a doctor to see a physiotherapist in Australia. You can ring us on 0403 907 587 or book online. We are at 177 Trimmer Parade, Seaton SA 5023, with free parking, and we see people from right across the western suburbs.

This article is general information about how healthcare funding works in Australia. It is not financial advice and it is not individual medical advice. Insurance policies differ, and the only reliable description of your cover is the one your own insurer gives you. Fees mentioned are correct at the time of writing; current fees are on our payment options page.

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