Two in three Australians could always see their preferred GP when they needed one in 2024-25. The Australian Bureau of Statistics puts it at 67.2 per cent, up slightly from 66.4 per cent the year before. That leaves roughly a third of the country explaining themselves again to whoever is free on the day.
Most people notice the cost of that in small ways. You spend the first six minutes of a fifteen-minute appointment on background. You get asked whether you have tried something you stopped two years ago. A plan that was working gets quietly restarted from the beginning because the new person cannot tell from the notes whether it was working or not.
What continuity of care actually means
The phrase covers three separate things, and clinics are often good at one and poor at the others.
The person knows you. Someone who has seen you four times has a baseline. They know what you look like when things are steady, which means they can tell when they are not. That judgement is not in any record.
The record follows you. Notes, results, correspondence and previous plans sit in one file that the next appointment can see. This is the part clinics most often get right and patients most often assume.
One plan gets reviewed rather than several getting started. A plan that is adjusted at each review builds on what came before. Three separate plans from three separate people are not the same thing, even when each one is sensible on its own.
You can have the second without the first. A large clinic with excellent software and a rotating roster gives you a complete record and a different person every time.
What the research found
The strongest single piece of evidence is a 2018 systematic review in BMJ Open by Pereira Gray and colleagues at the University of Exeter. It is worth being precise about what it did and did not establish, because the finding gets stretched.
The team searched MEDLINE, Embase and Web of Science from 1996 to 2017 and found 726 candidate articles, of which 22 met the criteria: they had to measure both continuity of care from a doctor and mortality in the same patients. Those 22 studies came from nine countries with very different health systems.
Eighteen of the 22, or 81.8 per cent, reported statistically significant reductions in mortality where continuity was higher. Sixteen of those were measuring all-cause mortality. Three studies found no association and one found mixed results. The protective association turned up with both generalist and specialist doctors.
The authors are careful about the limits and so should anyone quoting them. Every study was observational, cohort or cross-sectional, which means the review shows an association rather than proving that continuity causes the difference. The measurement methods varied so much that the results could not be pooled into a meta-analysis. Most of the studies did adjust for multiple confounding factors, which is why the pattern is taken seriously, but the authors still describe the whole evidence base as observational.
This research is about general practice and specialist care across nine health systems. It says nothing about any particular clinic, and it is not a claim about any particular treatment.
Australia now pays for continuity
MyMedicare is the Commonwealth’s voluntary patient registration model. The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing describes it as a way to formalise the relationship between patients, their general practice, their GP and the wider primary care team, and states plainly that evidence shows seeing the same GP and healthcare team regularly leads to better health outcomes.
Registration is voluntary and free. Once you register, the practice is notified that you have chosen them as your regular care team, and you get access to longer MBS-funded telehealth consultations with your GP, along with links to the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive and the Chronic Disease Management program.
To be eligible you need a Medicare card or a DVA Veteran Card, plus a record of face-to-face visits with the same practice in the previous 24 months. Two visits for most practices, one for practices in remote locations classified MM 6 and 7. People facing hardship, including those experiencing homelessness or domestic and family violence, are exempt from the eligibility requirements entirely.
There are three ways in. Start it yourself in your Medicare online account through the myGov app, ask the practice to start it and then complete it on your end, or fill in a paper form at the practice. Your practice has to be registered before you can register with them, so check with reception first.
Registering does not lock you out of care anywhere else. The department is explicit that MyMedicare registration will not prevent you from accessing care from other practices and providers for services that are not specifically linked to MyMedicare.
Worth knowing if you use a telehealth clinic alongside your GP: MyMedicare is a general practice model, and your registration belongs with your general practice. A separate telehealth service does not replace it and does not affect it.
What breaks continuity in practice
Four situations account for most of it. Two are visible before you book if you ask the right question, and two arrive without warning.
Your clinician leaves. In a small practice that removes your continuity in one go, and patients usually find out about it late.
The clinic books you with the next available person rather than with yours. This is often invisible until you try to book a review and are offered someone else within the hour. That is useful when you need an appointment quickly and expensive when you need someone who remembers you.
The clinic closes or is absorbed by a larger group. Telehealth in Australia has had a fair amount of this, and files do not always move cleanly.
You move, or your circumstances change, and the practice you were registered with is no longer practical.
The last two you cannot control, which is why knowing how to get hold of your own file matters more than it sounds.
How to check before you book
Four questions, asked of reception or on an information call, will tell you most of what you need:
- Will my reviews be with the same clinician, or with whoever is available? Listen for a straight answer. “We try to” is a different answer from “yes”.
- What happens when my clinician is on leave or leaves the practice? A clinic that has thought about this has a handover process. A clinic that has not will tell you they will “sort something out”.
- How do I get a copy of my record if I need it? You are entitled to it either way, but the speed of the answer tells you how often they do it.
- How long is a review appointment and how often will I have one? Being assigned to one clinician means little if the reviews are six months apart.
The questions to ask before you book covers the wider list, including fees and what happens between appointments.
When continuity is not the priority
It is possible to over-value this. If you need to be seen today, being seen today wins. Waiting three weeks for a familiar face when something has changed sharply is the wrong trade.
Second opinions are also legitimate, and asking for one is not a failure of continuity. Neither is leaving a clinician you do not get on with. If you have explained the same thing at three appointments and been brushed past three times, the length of the relationship is not the problem worth solving.
If your clinician leaves
This is where the whole idea gets tested. Ask who is taking over your care and when they start. Ask for it in writing if the answer is vague. Book the first appointment with the new clinician before your current plan runs out rather than after, so the handover happens while there is still something to hand over.
Request your records in the same conversation. A dated written request starts a thirty-day clock and costs you nothing to make, and your right to your health records sets out what you can ask for and what a clinic may charge.
If you decide to move rather than stay, moving to a new telehealth clinic covers what to gather first, and the changing clinics page runs through how a transfer works step by step.
The practical version
Register with MyMedicare at your general practice if you are eligible, because it is free and it formalises something you probably already have. When you book anywhere, ask whether reviews are with the same person before you pay for the first appointment. Keep a copy of your own record so that a clinic closing or a clinician leaving is an inconvenience rather than a restart.
At LeafLine Clinic, your first consultation and your reviews are with the same AHPRA-registered Clinician. That describes how the clinic schedules appointments and is not a claim about health outcomes. If you would rather ask how that works before booking anything, the 10-minute info call is with the patient-support team and involves no clinical assessment and no payment. The how it works page sets out the steps in order.
This article is general information only. Details of MyMedicare eligibility and registration are published by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing at health.gov.au, and the patient experience figures are from the Australian Bureau of Statistics release of 18 November 2025.
