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An MBS case conference note is the clinical record entry an Australian practitioner makes to substantiate a multidisciplinary or mental health case conference item under the Medicare Benefits Schedule. The regulations legislate recorded facts, not a form: the patient's agreement, the day with start and end times, participant names, and the matters discussed. Telehealth attendance notes add a documented eligibility pathway. Most run 150 to 400 words.
The practitioner claiming the item: the organising medical practitioner, or each participating practitioner, including eligible allied mental health professionals
The patient's medical record, the care team, Services Australia, Professional Services Review
150 to 400 words · 10 to 15 minutes by hand (clinical team estimate)
Medicare substantiation record (compare: case conference note, team meeting note, Better Access plan)
Whenever an MBS case conference or telehealth attendance item is claimed; written at the time or as soon as practicable
The recorded facts are delegated legislation (GMST Regulations); the note layout itself is convention
An MBS case conference note is the contemporaneous record entry a practitioner makes to substantiate a claim for a multidisciplinary or mental health case conference item under Australia's Medicare Benefits Schedule, and its telehealth sibling is the attendance note that substantiates a video or phone item. Case conferencing entered the MBS with the Enhanced Primary Care package in 1999; the recording rules now sit in the Health Insurance (General Medical Services Table) Regulations 2021, read with explanatory note AN.0.49. The mental health case conferencing family arrived on 1 July 2023 out of the Better Access evaluation, and the telehealth items, created by emergency determination in March 2020, became permanent on 1 January 2022. Clinicians file the same content under several names: case conf note, MDT note, case conference record, telehealth attendance note, or loosely CDM documentation.
The distinction this page exists to make: there is no legislated case conference template. What the regulations fix, in the organising and participating clauses (2.16.15 and 2.16.16), is the set of facts a biller must record: the patient's agreement, the day with start and end times, the participants, the matters the team worked through, a copy filed in the medical record, and, for the organiser, summaries offered and given and outcomes discussed. No participant signature, no written consent form, no minimum length, and no video-platform field appears anywhere in the instruments. The general-purpose meeting record, with its US and Canadian rules, lives on the case conference note page; this page covers the Australian claim-substantiation layer that turns that meeting record into evidence.
GPs and prescribed medical practitioners organise most conferences; psychiatrists, paediatricians, and consultant physicians have their own item families; and psychologists, mental health nurses, accredited mental health social workers, and occupational therapists participate, with eligible allied mental health professionals claiming the participation items in the mental health family. The settings are the coordination-heavy ones: shared GP and psychologist care under Better Access, residential aged care, palliative teams, and community mental health. Uptake has trailed the need from the start: Health Insurance Commission data showed only 11,095 case conference claims in 2001 against 155,486 multidisciplinary care plans, and GPs named the recording rules among the barriers. Reach for this note whenever an item will be claimed; use the team meeting note for the recurring internal meeting that reviews several clients without billing, and the Better Access treatment plan when the work product is the plan itself rather than a conference.
Consent, recorded before the conference. Explain the nature of the conference to the patient, ask whether they agree, and record the agreement. The patient or carer need not attend, and nothing requires the consent to be in writing or on a signed form: the recorded fact is the requirement. For the mental health items, record agreement to each participant as well. Pitfall: consent obtained in conversation and recorded nowhere; a missing agreement line can unwind an otherwise perfect claim.
Day, start and end times. Record the day and the exact start and end times, written at the time. The items are tiered at 15 to 20, 20 to 40, and 40 or more minutes, so the times are not context, they select the item. AskMBS confirms no minute-by-minute template is needed, and only time actually spent in the conference counts. Pitfall: a tier the recorded times cannot prove; absent or reconstructed times are the most common failure in Professional Services Review outcomes.
Participants and team mix. Name every participant with their profession and the kind of care they bring. A claimable conference needs at least three participants present at the same time, no more than two of them medical practitioners, each providing a different kind of care; the patient does not count toward the minimum. Pitfall: an email thread, a pair of clinicians, or three doctors written up as a conference; each fails the definition before the note is even read.
Matters discussed: the enumerated set. Record what the team worked through: the patient's history and multidisciplinary care needs, the outcomes to be achieved, the tasks allocated with a named member for each, and a review of previously identified outcomes. Pitfall: "case discussed, plan agreed"; an empty discussion section reads to an auditor as a service that cannot be shown to have happened.
Copy filed in the record. Place a copy of the conference record in the patient's medical record; a note that lives only in the organiser's meeting file fails the clause. This is also where the two-year retention clock for claim-condition documents starts. Pitfall: a compliant record filed in the wrong place; a records reviewer reads the patient's chart, not your meeting folder.
Organiser extras: summaries and outcomes. The organiser must also offer a summary to the patient and carer, give a summary to each team member, and discuss the conference outcomes with the patient or carer. Participants have none of these duties, and the organiser cannot claim a participation item on top: organising includes participating. Pitfall: an organiser item claimed on a participant-grade record, with no distribution trail to show.
Telehealth attendances: the eligibility line. For video and phone attendance items, add one line documenting the eligibility pathway: a face-to-face service with you or your practice in the preceding 12 months, or the exemption relied on. Modality is captured by the item number, and no instrument requires the platform to be named. Pitfall: a note that names the video platform but not the pathway; the first is optional, the second is what the November 2025 AskMBS advisory expects.
Attribution and timing. Sign off with your name and credentials, and complete the entry at the time or as soon as practicable, as a separate dated entry for each service, comprehensible enough for another practitioner to continue the patient's care from it. Pitfall: batch-writing entries days later; a reconstructed entry is exactly what PSR findings describe as inadequate.
MBS CASE CONFERENCE NOTE (Australia) Patient: ______________ DOB: __________ Conference date: __________ Role: [ ] organiser [ ] participant Item claimed / tier: __________ Patient agreement recorded (date, how): ________________________________ Patient/carer attending: [ ] yes [ ] no (recorded consent is required, attendance is not) Start time: ________ End time: ________ Total minutes: ________ Tier check: [ ] 15 to 20 min [ ] 20 to 40 min [ ] 40+ min PARTICIPANTS (name, profession, kind of care, mode: in person/video/phone) 1. _____________________________ 2. _____________________________ 3. _____________________________ 4. _____________________________ All present at the same time: [ ] Mix: 3+ members, no more than 2 medical practitioners, each providing a different kind of care: [ ] MATTERS DISCUSSED History and multidisciplinary care needs: ______________________________ Outcomes to be achieved: _______________________________________________ Tasks allocated (task, named member, timeframe): _______________________ Previously identified outcomes reviewed: _______________________________ ORGANISER ONLY Summary offered to patient/carer: [ ] Summary given to each member: [ ] Outcomes discussed with patient/carer: [ ] TELEHEALTH ATTENDANCES (if claiming video/phone items) Eligibility pathway: [ ] face-to-face with practitioner/practice in the last 12 months [ ] exemption relied on: ____________ (document it) Copy of this record filed in the patient's medical record: [ ] Author name/credentials/date: __________________________________________
Free to use and share, no signup. The PDF includes a one-page cheat sheet with section-by-section pitfalls and a pre-sign checklist; the DOCX is the blank template, ready to adapt.
Scenario: a GP organises a mental health case conference by video for a 29-year-old with major depressive disorder and harmful alcohol use whose treatment has stalled; the treating psychologist and an accredited mental health social worker participate. All details are fictional.
MBS Mental Health Case Conference Note. Patient: R.T., 29 · Conference date: 21/07/2026 · Role: organiser · Purpose: coordinate depression and alcohol care across GP, psychologist, and AMHSW after eight weeks without improvement
Consent: Nature and purpose of the conference explained at the 14/07/2026 attendance; R.T. agreed to the conference and to each named participant; agreement recorded that day. R.T. elected not to attend.
Day, times, mode: 21/07/2026, 14:05 to 14:37 (32 minutes). All three participants present at the same time by video.
Participants: Dr H. Patel, GP (organiser, medical care); C. Bruns, clinical psychologist (fortnightly psychological therapy); M. Okafor, accredited mental health social worker (alcohol and housing supports). Three participants, one medical practitioner, each providing a different kind of care.
Matters discussed: History and needs: PHQ-9 19 on 14/07/2026, minimal change over eight weeks; drinking 6 to 8 standard drinks on about three nights weekly; rent arrears adding stress; shift work disrupting appointments. Outcomes to be achieved: one shared behavioural activation plan, a coordinated drinking-reduction target, and rent assistance lodged. Tasks allocated: C. Bruns to align session goals with the shared activation plan and repeat the PHQ-9 by 18/08/2026; M. Okafor to lodge the rent assistance application by 28/07/2026 and begin weekly check-ins; Dr Patel to review sertraline dose and pathology at the 24/07/2026 attendance. Previously identified outcomes reviewed: the 04/2026 referral plan lapsed when R.T. stopped attending; barriers (shift work, cost) addressed by moving to evening telehealth sessions.
Organiser items and filing: Summary offered to R.T. and accepted, sent 22/07/2026; summaries provided to both participants 22/07/2026; outcomes to be discussed with R.T. at the 24/07/2026 attendance. Copy of this record filed in R.T.'s medical record. Entry completed 21/07/2026 immediately after the conference. Dr H. Patel, MBBS FRACGP.
This sample is fictional and for educational purposes. It does not describe a real patient.
Writing these after every session? BastionGPT drafts complete notes from bullets, dictation, or a transcript.
Generate a note from bulletsEvery claimed conference and telehealth attendance lives or dies on the record. Section 81(1) of the Health Insurance Act 1973 sets the "adequate and contemporaneous records" standard, and regulation 6 of the PSR Scheme Regulations 2019 gives it four teeth: the record names the patient and carries a separate dated entry for each service; the entry holds enough clinical information to explain the service; it is completed at the time or as soon as practicable afterwards; and it is comprehensible enough that another practitioner could take over the patient's care in reliance on it. Two retention clocks then run: a copy of any document created as a condition of claiming an item must be kept for two years from the date of service, and the clinical record itself follows state and territory law, seven years for adults and until age 25 for minors in Victoria, NSW, and the ACT, no statutory period in South Australia, and longer wherever a complaint or litigation is foreseeable.
The payer layer decides what else must appear. Case conference items are time-tiered, so the recorded duration selects the item; the conference must be clinically separate from preparing or reviewing a care plan, and the descriptors exclude same-occasion claims with a list of chronic condition management items, which since 1 July 2025 means the GP Chronic Condition Management Plan items 965 and 967 that replaced the GPMP and TCA architecture (the asynchronous coordination those plans generate belongs in a care coordination note). For telehealth attendances, document the eligibility pathway: a face-to-face service with the practitioner or practice in the preceding 12 months, or the exemption relied on, which the November 2025 AskMBS advisory expects in the clinical notes. Scale explains the scrutiny: the Australian National Audit Office recorded more than 86.3 million COVID-era telehealth services to 16.1 million patients, worth $4.4 billion in benefits, and two statutory tripwires, the 80/20 rule and the 30/20 phone rule, refer prescribed patterns of service straight to PSR. The note format is a convention; the recorded facts are the requirement.
These claims are policed under Part VAA of the Health Insurance Act 1973 by the Professional Services Review, and the published outcomes are specific. The Director's update for June 2026 describes a practitioner who rendered the highest volume of item 758 nationally and acknowledged inappropriate practice across items including 743 and 758; the July 2025 update records a 12-month disqualification where the record did not always contain the documentation required for the billed service, across chronic disease and mental health items and their telehealth equivalents. The pattern is stable: PSR's 2021-22 annual report found most reviewed cases involved "inadequate clinical notes, failure to comply with the particular requirements of the MBS items", or prescribing concerns. The BastionGPT Clinical Advisory Board sees the same errors most often in MBS case conference note reviews:
| Aspect | United States | Canada | Australia |
|---|---|---|---|
| Status | No analogue: Medicare bundles the team conference codes 99366 to 99368 (status B), so no separate payment and no claim-substantiation regime | Provincial payer policy: Ontario pays time-unit K-codes (K700 series, K121, K124) under OHIP with college and PHIPA record rules | Delegated legislation: the GMST Regulations make the recording activities a condition of billing items 735 to 758 and the mental health case conferencing items |
| Terminology | Team conference, IDT or care planning conference | Case conference (K-codes), care conference in long-term care | Multidisciplinary case conference, MH case conference, telehealth attendance record |
| What changes | Conference work is documented inside care management and E/M services; the note supports medical necessity rather than a conference claim | Time-unit billing with per-code caps, for example K701 (mental health) is restricted to psychiatry and capped at four per patient per physician per 12 months | Recorded consent, day and start/end times, participant names, enumerated matters, a filed copy, organiser summaries, and a documented telehealth eligibility pathway |
| Retention | HIPAA keeps required documentation six years; patient charts follow state law, often longer | College standards: commonly about ten years from last entry, or from the age of majority for minors | Two years for MBS claim-condition documents; the chart runs seven years for adults and until age 25 for minors in Vic, NSW, and the ACT |
The meeting looks identical in all three countries; the paperwork does not. A US clinician writes the conference into care management documentation, an Ontario physician bills time units against college record rules, and an Australian biller works against an enumerated statutory list with an audit agency attached. This page is written to that strictest list.
BastionGPT is specifically trained, tuned, and clinically tested on MBS case conference notes.
See how clinicians use it day to day on the AI therapy notes page.
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HIPAA-compliant with a signed BAA on every plan. Your data is never used to train models. BastionGPT drafts, you review and sign.
No. No regulation or MBS instrument prescribes a case conference form. What the law fixes is a list of facts that must be recorded when an item is billed: the patient's recorded agreement, the day with start and end times, the participant names, the matters discussed, a copy filed in the medical record, and the organiser's summaries. Any layout that captures those facts is compliant, including the general-purpose case conference note adapted with the MBS fields.
No. The patient or their carer must agree to the conference before it happens and the agreement must be recorded, but attendance is optional under both the primary care and the mental health case conferencing notes. Nothing requires the consent to be in writing either: the recorded agreement, not a signed form, is the legislated element.
Record the day and the exact start and end times when they happen. The items are tiered at 15 to 20, 20 to 40, and 40 or more minutes, and the tier claimed must be provable from the record. AskMBS has confirmed no minute-by-minute template is required and that only time actually spent in the conference counts. Absent or reconstructed times are the most common failure point in Professional Services Review outcomes.
At least three, present at the same time, each providing a different kind of care, and no more than two of them medical practitioners; the patient does not count toward the minimum. One more rule surprises organisers: organising includes participating, so the organiser cannot also claim a participation item for the same conference. Team members who bill nothing do not have to meet the item requirements at all.
No, it is an attendance rule. Video and phone attendance items generally require a face-to-face service with the practitioner or their practice in the preceding 12 months, or a listed exemption, and the November 2025 AskMBS advisory expects the exemption relied on to be documented in the clinical notes. Case conference items carry no such requirement, and the mental health family expressly waives any existing-relationship rule for providers other than the patient's usual practitioner. A video therapy session is a single-provider attendance with its own record; see the telehealth therapy note.
No MBS instrument requires the platform to be named in the note, and phone versus video is captured by the item number you claim rather than by a mandated modality field. What privacy law does require is that you are satisfied the software meets security and privacy requirements, a practice-level obligation rather than a per-note field. Many clinicians still note the modality and any technical interruptions; that is good practice, not law.
No. Provisional psychologists cannot obtain a Medicare provider number, so they cannot claim any MBS item, including the mental health case conference participation items 80176 to 80178. Those items belong to eligible allied mental health professionals, such as registered and clinical psychologists qualified to provide psychological therapy or focussed psychological strategies, and the wider family separates GP, psychiatrist, prescribed medical practitioner, and allied health roles.
Two clocks run at once. A document created as a condition of claiming an MBS item must be kept for two years from the date of service. The clinical record it sits in follows state and territory law: seven years from last service for adults, and until age 25 for minors, in Victoria, NSW, and the ACT, while South Australia sets no statutory period. Where a complaint or litigation is foreseeable, keep the record until the matter is fully closed.
Bring the conference however you captured it: a dictated recap, the agenda with notes, or a transcript. BastionGPT drafts the note with the legislated facts in their places, flags a missing agreement line, an unprovable time tier, or an unmet team mix before you claim, and produces the patient and team summaries the organiser must distribute. BastionGPT is HIPAA-compliant with a signed BAA on every plan, and your data is never used to train models.
Educational content, not legal or billing advice. Sample notes are fictional. Follow your organization's policies and your board, payer, and jurisdiction requirements.