Abby for People Without a Regular GP

Abby Health is an online-first clinic built for Australians who do not currently have a regular GP. Rather than operating as a one-off consultation service, Abby is designed as a long-term clinic — a clinician who gets to know you, a care record that follows you from appointment to appointment, and a care network that makes continuity possible wherever you happen to live. Three in four Abby patients see the same clinician again on their next appointment (Abby Health internal data, Q1 2026). Consultations are bulk billed for eligible patients with a valid Medicare card.

Australia's GP shortage is not an abstraction — it is an everyday experience

If you have recently tried to find a new GP, you already know the shape of the problem. Clinics with closed books. Wait times of several weeks for a first appointment. Appointment slots that do not line up with the hours you can actually attend. A rotating cast of locums rather than a named doctor. A steady attrition of long-serving GPs whose replacement has not arrived.

The underlying dynamics are well documented. The general practice workforce has not kept pace with population growth, training pipelines have narrowed, and the economics of small-clinic general practice have put pressure on continuity at exactly the moment patients need it most. The Department of Health and Aged Care has acknowledged the workforce challenge in successive reviews; the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners reports a steady rise in the proportion of Australians who say they do not have a regular GP.

Abby exists, in part, to serve those patients. Not as a replacement for a relationship that already exists and is working — if you have a GP you know and trust, the right thing is almost always to keep seeing them — but as a long-term clinic for the many Australians for whom the traditional model has quietly stopped functioning.

Restoring the oldest idea in healthcare: a doctor who knows you

Abby Health is a restorer, not a disruptor. We have no new vision for healthcare. We have the oldest one. A doctor who knows you. We just have a new way to deliver it.

What that looks like in practice is a clinic designed around continuity rather than episodic transactions. When you book your first Abby consultation, the aim is not to get you through that single appointment. The aim is to start building a clinical relationship that continues across months and years. You see the same clinician again on your next appointment where you choose to, and the care record that builds up over time means each consultation begins with context rather than starting from scratch.

The 71% rebook rate (Abby Health internal data, Q1 2026) is how that shows up in the numbers. Three in four patients who book a return appointment see the same clinician. That is not an accident of scheduling. It is a design choice — rostering, clinician assignment, and care-team composition are all oriented toward making continuity the default rather than the exception. For more on how the care record is maintained across appointments, see how Abby remembers you — continuity of care.

What a long-term clinic actually does differently

A long-term clinic does a number of things that a single-visit service simply cannot. It recognises patterns over time — the blood-pressure reading that has been creeping up, the mood pattern that has been sliding, the medication that was started two years ago and has never been formally reviewed. It picks up on context that matters — the family history that shapes risk assessment, the life event that changed how a condition is managed, the earlier presentation that reframes the current one.

Abby's care model is built to enable this. Abby AI, our medical AI, surfaces relevant history, medications, allergies, risk signals, and follow-ups before each consultation, so the clinician begins already informed. Abby AI is a decision-support tool. It does not diagnose, prescribe, or replace clinician judgment — and its note-disapproval rate from clinicians in the Abby care network is 0.03% (Abby Health internal data, Q1 2026), a measure of how closely its prepared material tracks what clinicians themselves would include. For the fuller explainer, see what Abby AI is — decision support explained.

The practitioners you see in the Abby network are GPs, Specialist GPs, and Nurse Practitioners — all holding current AHPRA registration. The distinctions between these roles, and when you would typically see each, are covered in what makes a Specialist GP in Australia, what a Nurse Practitioner is in Australia, and when you'll see an NP vs a GP.

How Abby becomes your clinic, not a one-off service

The transition from "patient without a regular GP" to "patient of a long-term clinic" happens across a handful of early interactions rather than in a single appointment. Your first consultation is typically a longer one — there is more history to take, more context to understand, and more of a clinical plan to establish. Your clinician will typically review your existing medications, any relevant past conditions, your family history, and what you are hoping to get from a primary-care relationship.

From there, the rhythm is set by what your health actually needs. For some patients, that is a handful of appointments a year — routine reviews, vaccinations, seasonal concerns. For others it is much more frequent contact, particularly where there are chronic conditions to manage or mental health care to coordinate. The relationship is shaped around the patient, not around an arbitrary schedule.

Because Abby is an online-first clinic rather than a purely episodic telehealth app, the record of these appointments builds into something coherent over time. Your next consultation is framed by what came before. That is true whether you see the same clinician every time, or whether you occasionally see a different one — because the record and the Abby AI consult preparation carry the context forward.

The 12-month face-to-face rule and what it means for new patients

One detail that often confuses patients new to online-first care is the 12-month face-to-face rule, introduced when Medicare telehealth was made permanent in 2022. It normally requires a patient to have attended at least one in-person GP consultation in the preceding 12 months for a bulk-billed telehealth item to apply. The rule exists to encourage continuity and discourage episodic, transactional care.

Exemptions apply for patients in MMM6 and MMM7 classifications (the most remote areas) and for certain other categories. The operational detail is set out in the 12-month face-to-face rule explained. For how bulk billing works at Abby across different patient situations, see is Abby bulk billed. Abby clinicians will work through the specifics with you at the time of booking if there is any uncertainty — the aim is that you are not surprised by a bill or by an eligibility question after the fact.

Keeping a relationship going when life gets in the way

A long-term clinic is most valuable at precisely the moments when it is hardest to book an appointment. When you are sick. When you are travelling. When you have moved house. When you have had a baby. When you are caring for a relative. The mode of care at Abby is built to keep going through those moments rather than breaking under them.

The clinic operates seven days a week, 365 days a year. Consultations are delivered by video or phone, which means the relationship does not fall apart if you are living in a different state for a few months. E-prescriptions go to your phone; referrals can be issued electronically; pathology requests are honoured by collection centres across Australia. For the broader picture of when telehealth works and when it does not, see when telehealth is right for you, and for practical prescribing detail see how to get a prescription online in Australia.

Who will actually be looking after you

The clinicians in the Abby care network are named, qualified, and publicly identified. They are not anonymous call-centre staff. All Abby Health practitioners hold current AHPRA registration. The care network is led by a Chief Medical Officer who spent 35 years as a rural GP in Broken Hill, and a Clinical Director who sits on the AMA NSW Council. For a fuller picture of the people in the Abby care network, see who are Abby's practitioners.

Frequently asked questions

Can Abby actually be my regular GP?

Yes — that is how the clinic is designed. Abby is an online-first clinic rather than a single-visit telehealth service. Appointments, prescriptions, referrals, mental health care plans, and ongoing chronic-disease management all sit inside a single clinical relationship that carries over from one appointment to the next. Three in four patients see the same clinician again on their next appointment (Abby Health internal data, Q1 2026).

What if I already have a GP I see occasionally?

If you have a GP you know and trust, the right thing is almost always to keep seeing them. Abby is designed for the many Australians who do not currently have that relationship. Some patients use Abby alongside an existing local GP — for example, for out-of-hours consultations, prescriptions, or mental health support — and co-ordinate between the two as they would any split-location care.

How does Abby keep track of my history across appointments?

Your clinical record is held inside the Abby care network and carried forward from consultation to consultation. Abby AI, our medical AI, surfaces relevant history, medications, allergies, risk signals, and follow-ups before each consultation so the clinician begins already informed. Abby AI is a decision-support tool — it never diagnoses, prescribes, or replaces clinician judgment. For more, see what Abby AI is — decision support explained.

Is Abby a good fit for complex or chronic conditions?

Long-term, continuous care is most valuable where conditions are chronic or complex — where the pattern across time matters. The Abby care model is designed for that kind of care. For presentations requiring a physical examination, procedure, or in-person intervention, your Abby clinician will guide you to the right local service. Abby is designed to complement in-person care where that is needed, not to replace it.

Find Comfort. Abby Health. Knowing someone cares.