Referrals and bulk billing

Every scan listed on scanfinder needs a referral. You cannot walk into an imaging practice and ask for an MRI the way you can ask a pharmacist for paracetamol, and no page on this site will tell you which scan to ask for — that is your doctor's call.

A referral names the scan and usually the body part, and it carries an MBS item number. Who wrote it matters: for MRI, GPs can request a limited set of items and specialists can request more. That is one of the reasons two people having 'the same scan' can get different rebates.

A referral is generally not tied to one clinic. Unless it says otherwise, you can usually take it to whichever accredited practice suits you — which is the whole reason a directory like this is useful. If you are being sent somewhere specific, ask why; sometimes it matters clinically and sometimes it is habit.

Worth asking when you book: does this practice bulk bill for the item on my referral; if not, what is the out-of-pocket; is the machine on site or does it visit on certain days; and how long is the wait. Regional practices in particular sometimes run a visiting service rather than a permanent machine, and the register cannot tell us which.

If a practice tells you something that contradicts what we show, believe the practice — and then tell us, so we can fix it.