Renewal FAQ for employers of medical practitioners

Medical practitioners with general, specialist or non-practising registration are due to renew their registration with the Medical Board of Australia by 30 September each year. You can help remind employees when their registration is due and encourage them to renew quickly and easily online.

You can confirm the registration status of a medical practitioner using the online national register. The online register is updated daily and is the safest and most up-to-date way to check a practitioner’s registration.

A medical practitioner’s listing on the national register is proof that they are registered to practise.

An online subscription service is available for you to request publicly available registration details of multiple employees – up to 50,000 medical practitioners at a time – using their unique registration numbers. It is important in the interest of public safety that you check the national register to ensure medical practitioners are registered to practise.

If a medical practitioner’s registration has been cancelled, details are published in a searchable online national register of cancelled health practitioners. Using specified search fields in the register, you can search a medical practitioner’s details against this register.

Under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law as in force in each state and territory (the National Law), medical practitioners remain registered for one month after their registration expiry date.

If medical practitioners apply to renew registration before or within the one-month late period they remain registered to practise while their application is assessed and processed. This is the case even if the processing timeline extends beyond the medical practitioner’s registration expiry date (30 September) or the end of the following one month late period. Once the application process is complete, the medical practitioner’s listing on the national register will be updated.

You can check the national register. If a medical practitioner does not renew before the end of the one-month late period, their registration will lapse. The national register is the most accurate and up to date record of a medical practitioner’s registration status. A medical practitioner whose registration has lapsed, and they have not applied to renew by the end of the one month late period, will have their listing removed from the national register.

Once registration has lapsed, the medical practitioner must make a new application for registration in order to practise. There is a fast track application process available for applications made within four weeks of the start of the fast track period (1 November). Medical practitioners who submit a fast track application cannot practise until their application has been processed and their registration details are updated on the national register.