medicare aob reform · in force since 1 july 2026

Verbal assignment of benefit is over.

Bulk-billed services now need a written or electronic assignment the patient actually made — and that you can prove they made. RadForms captures compliant electronic AoB signatures at the point of care and tracks the status of every study on your worklist.

Get AoB-ready — book a demo Explore the platform

Assignment lifecycle · per study

AoB dueStudy has an outstanding assignment — badge shows on the worklist
signing…Patient is completing the AoB form on a device
AoB obtained ✓Signature valid — sealed record stored and routed
voidStored data no longer matches the signature — flagged for review

sig: ed25519 · digest: sha-256 · verify: on-demand

what changed

A signature you can audit, or a benefit you can't claim.

From 1 July 2026, a patient's agreement to assign their Medicare benefit must be captured in an approved form — written, or electronic with a proper audit trail consistent with the Electronic Transactions Act 1999. A note that says “patient agreed verbally” no longer stands up.

the exposure for radiology

✕High-volume bulk-billed lists where re-capturing a missed assignment means recalling the patient.
✕Paper AoB forms that get scanned late, filed apart from the study, or lost between sites.
✕No systematic way to see, per study, whether an assignment was actually obtained.
✓RadForms puts the assignment inside the imaging workflow: captured at the point of care, sealed on submission, tracked per study, stored with the record.

how radforms handles it

From worklist badge to sealed record, in one flow.

AoB status on every study

The worklist shows a Medicare badge per study — needed, pending, obtained, or void — so front desk and techs can see outstanding assignments at a glance, before the patient leaves.

Auto-filled from the worklist

Patient demographics and the service description come straight from your Modality Worklist. Provider numbers and MBS item mappings are configured once and applied automatically.

Signed at the point of care

The patient signs on the tablet — bedside, kiosk or front desk. AoB-flagged forms pin to the top of the form list while an assignment is outstanding.

Cryptographically sealed

On submission, RadForms binds the completed form data with an Ed25519 digital signature. If the record is ever altered, verification fails and the study is flagged void — tamper-evidence, not trust.

Verifiable on demand

Every signed form carries its own verification material and can be re-verified at any time via the API — years later, on demand, during an audit.

Stored where you can prove it

The signed PDF routes to PACS and your records with the study, and every access is written to the audit log — user, action, timestamp, IP.

questions

AoB, answered.

What changed on 1 July 2026?

Under the Medicare reforms that commenced on 1 July 2026, practitioners can no longer rely on a patient's verbal agreement to assign their Medicare benefit for bulk-billed services. The assignment must be captured in an approved written or electronic form, and electronic approaches need to be auditable and consistent with the Electronic Transactions Act 1999.

Does an electronic signature satisfy the new rules?

Yes — electronic assignment is an approved channel when it reliably identifies the patient, records their agreement, and produces an auditable record. RadForms is designed for exactly that: the patient signs on-screen, the completed data set is cryptographically sealed, and the record can be independently re-verified later. Confirm the specific requirements for your practice with Services Australia.

What does “tamper-evident” actually mean?

Each submitted AoB form is signed with an Ed25519 key over a canonical serialisation of the form's contents. Change a single character of the stored record and verification fails — the study's AoB status flips to voidand it is flagged for follow-up. You don't have to trust the database; you can prove it.

Can we run pre-service and post-service assignment?

Yes. Any template can be flagged as an AoB agreement, so you can run pre-service assignment at check-in and post-service confirmation after the examination, matched to studies automatically by your form rules.

How quickly can a practice be ready?

RadForms deploys in Docker on your own infrastructure, and AoB templates ship ready to adapt. Most of the setup is the same 20-minute workflow review we run for any deployment — worklist connection, provider numbers, and where signed PDFs should route.

This page is general information about the assignment of benefit changes for services billed under Australian Medicare, not legal or billing advice. Confirm the requirements that apply to your practice with Services Australia or your professional adviser.

The reform is in force. Get compliant this month.

A demo takes 20 minutes. A pilot takes one modality. Your AoB status becomes a green badge on every study.

Book the AoB demo Start free trial