What to expect in your first 90 days as a GP in Australia?

The right mindset

The first 90 days are far more manageable than most GPs fear, because what you are learning is a system, not a profession. Your clinical skills come with you; the local billing, prescribing and software are learnable, especially with a practice and often a supervisor helping you. Treat the three months as an apprenticeship in the local way of working, go a little slower at first, and accept help early. This guide sits within the complete relocation guide and follows the relocation checklist and the guide to moving your family.

Day one and week one

Your first day is far more likely to be orientation than a packed clinic: meeting the team, touring the practice, learning the clinical software, setting up your logins and provider details, and being walked through the billing and referral workflows. Most practices start you with a lighter schedule and build it up over the first weeks, so you have room to find your footing.

The first week is about absorbing how this particular practice runs: how appointments are booked, how billing is done at the end of a consultation, how referrals and results flow, and who to ask when something is unfamiliar. It is a lot of small, practical detail rather than anything clinically hard, so keep a running note of the little things, a billing code, a referral quirk, a software shortcut, to save asking twice. Consultations may feel slower at first because each one carries small unfamiliar steps, choosing the right item, generating the script the local way, finding where a result lives, but that friction fades fast. Use any open gaps in your schedule to explore the software and shadow a colleague for an hour.

Orientation and supervision

If you came through the expedited specialist pathway, orientation and a period of supervised practice are a formal part of your early months, alongside cultural safety education, as set by the Medical Board. In practice, supervision usually means having an experienced GP to check in with, discuss cases, and turn to with the local questions that come up, which most GPs find a built-in safety net rather than a restriction. The specifics depend on your pathway and any registration conditions, so confirm the current requirements with AHPRA and the Medical Board and read the dedicated guide to supervised practice and orientation.

The cultural safety education that accompanies the pathway focuses on providing respectful, effective care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and understanding the health context you are now working in. Treat your supervisor as a resource for the small local questions too.

Learning the systems

The learning curve is almost entirely about systems. Billing runs through the MBS, an item-based schedule you select from at each consultation and the biggest single change from the UK. Prescribing works through the PBS, with its own scripts and prescriber number. Structured care runs through care plan items, and remote consulting through telehealth items.

None of these is difficult on its own, and your software and colleagues carry much of the load. Tackle them one at a time and in the flow of real consultations: get comfortable with the common billing items before the rarer ones, get the routine script process fluent before authority or streamlined prescribing, and learn the care plan items when a suitable patient comes in. A nurse, practice manager or billing lead can usually answer the small questions quickly, and within the first month most daily systems feel ordinary. The broader shape of how the day differs is covered in how general practice differs.

Building your patient base

One difference that shapes the early months is that there is no registered patient list. Patients choose their GP and often try a few before settling, so you are not handed a panel; you earn a following, and the early schedule is often lighter and fills as patients return and ask for you specifically.

This is normal, and it affects your income under the percentage-of-billings model, since a building list means building billings. A few practical moves help it along: offer to see the walk-ins and same-day patients a busy practice always has, since many become regulars once they meet a GP they like; follow up your own patients yourself so continuity forms; and ask reception to book returning patients back with you rather than whoever is free. By the 90-day point many GPs have a recognisable core of regulars.

The admin foundations

Get the administrative foundations in place around the time you start rather than scrambling later. The essentials are your Medicare provider number and billing setup, your medical indemnity cover, and your CPD home and any supervision requirements under your pathway.

On the personal side, sort banking, longer-term housing and, if relevant, schools and childcare, all covered in the guide to moving your family. Whether you are a contractor or an employee also affects your tax and super setup, so confirm it early.

What takes adjusting to

The genuine adjustments are administrative rather than clinical: item-based billing, the absence of a registered list, PBS prescribing rules, and a scope of practice that can be a little wider, with more procedural and preventive work handled in general practice. The conditions, consultations and decision-making all transfer directly.

From surviving to thriving

By the end of 90 days, most GPs have moved from finding their feet to enjoying the work: systems fluent, patient base forming, and real confidence in the local way of working. It is also the point where you can start shaping the job around your own priorities, developing a special interest, adding a particular clinic, or protecting certain days for family or the outdoor life that brought you here. Keep learning through your CPD and colleagues, who become both a support and a source of referrals. If a rural or regional setting is part of your plan, the welcome and the sense of belonging to a community often arrive faster than in a large city.

In summary

Treat the three months as a learning period, get the admin foundations in place in the first weeks, and lean on your supervisor and colleagues for the local questions. Confirm any pathway, supervision and registration requirements with AHPRA and the Medical Board, since they depend on your circumstances and can change.

Sources

These are the primary sources behind this guide. Read them directly and confirm anything time-sensitive on the day.

Frequently asked questions