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In this month's issue:
Remember to renew your registration before 30 September if you want to keep practising and avoid a late fee. Registration renewal is open for medical practitioners with general, specialist and non-practising registration. Check your inbox for your renewal email from Ahpra, with details and links.
We encourage you to renew now and avoid delays at our busiest time, especially if you need to log in to the Ahpra portal for the first time. If you need a hand, including with the tech side of things, please call our customer service team on 1300 419 495. The earlier you can log in and renew, the better, as customer service wait times get longer in end of the month rush. Don’t leave it to the last days!
The fee for 2025/26 is $1,058 and $908 in NSW. More information is on the Fees page. Ahpra will email your renewal receipt shortly after we receive your payment.
When you renew your registration this year, you will need to tell us the name of your CPD home for the 2024 calendar year.
More information is on the Ahpra renewal page and FAQs for medical practitioners on the Medical Board website.
In case you missed the news last month, here’s a reminder to log in to the new Ahpra portal before you renew your medical registration this year.
It takes a few steps to set up your portal when you log in for the first time, as it now uses multifactor authentication. Multifactor authentication is an extra layer of security to protect your Ahpra account. You will only need to set up the portal once.
The set-up process involves linking an authenticator app to your Ahpra portal. You don’t need to pay for an authenticator app – we recommend the free Google Authenticator app.
Look for the app with this icon in Apple’s App store or the Google Play store.
Don’t delete the app once you have linked it to your Ahpra account, as you will need the 6-digit code sent from the app each time you log in. After you have installed the authenticator app, you can attach an account name to the code in the app for easy reference next time, e.g. ‘Ahpra portal’.
If you’re not sure how to login or link the app, there’s an online help centre with step-by-step guides, instruction videos and troubleshooting tips.
There is financial relief for medical practitioners taking parental and other forms of leave on the grounds of a protected attribute, with a 30 per cent rebate available on annual registration renewal fees. Protected attributes include parental leave, disability or status as a carer.
The rebate is available to medical practitioners who take at least six continuous months of leave on the basis of a protected attribute.
From 2025, a medical practitioner with general and/or specialist registration who has taken six or more months of protected attribute leave in the previous 12 months can receive a rebate of more than $300 on this year’s annual registration fee.
Ahpra is reviewing what else it can do to introduce more flexible fee-setting arrangements, with more changes to take effect from 1 July 2026.
Read the Fee relief for parental leave and other protected attribute leave policy on the Ahpra website for more information and more detail on fees on the Medical Board’s fees page.
Doctor in training …? There’s still time to do the 2025 Medical Training Survey (MTS).
The MTS is run to help doctors in training. MTS data – generated by trainees – is being used across the health sector to improve training.
Trainees are using MTS data to inform their site and specialty training choices. Colleges, hospitals and accreditors are using it to benchmark performance and improve training.
The more trainees doing the MTS, the stronger the dataset and the more useful it is to drive positive change.
Join your doctor in training colleagues and do the 2025 MTS. It’s open until 8 October. Visit the MTS website and hear why your colleagues are doing it this year.
MTS results are collated anonymously, published online and publicly accessible. They provide the most comprehensive national data-source on medical training.
Interns and international medical graduates have received their unique survey link in an email invitation from the Medical Board. All other doctors in training can access their unique survey link when they renew their medical registration. Trainees can also find their unique survey link in the ‘current activity’ area in their Ahpra portal, after they’ve renewed their registration.
For more information on the survey visit MedicalTrainingSurvey.gov.au
In August 2025, health ministers approved rural generalist medicine as new field of specialty practice within the existing specialty of general practice. It is only the second addition to specialty practice in 15 years approved by health ministers, after genetic pathology was approved in June 2025.
Recognising the new specialty marks an important milestone in a long, multi-stakeholder campaign to improve health outcomes for regional, rural and remote communities of Australia.
The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) proposed the recognition, demonstrating to the Australian Medical Council (AMC), the Medical Board and health ministers that there is a public benefit in recognising rural generalist medicine for the purposes of specialist registration. The AMC can now assess training programs in rural generalist medicine for accreditation, ahead of the Board deciding whether to approve qualifications for the purposes of specialist registration.
Once there is an approved qualification, medical practitioners with the approved qualification can apply for specialist registration in rural generalist medicine.
The Board is now working through transition arrangements for doctors practising in this area, pending the outcome of the AMC qualification accreditation process.
For more information read the news item.
New practice and advertising guidelines strengthen safeguards across the cosmetic procedures industry, with extra training mandated and greater protection for young people.
The new practice guidelines for non-surgical cosmetic procedures bring other health professions (including nurses and dentists) in line with the guidelines in place for doctors since 2023. They remind practitioners to put patient welfare first, with the prescriber remaining responsible for patient care.
New advertising guidelines now apply across all professions, including medicine. They protect young Australians by banning targeted advertising for people under the age of 18.
Social media drives demand in the cosmetic industry. Practitioners must now make sure their advertising complies with the new guidelines.
The Guidelines for advertising higher-risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures and the Guidelines for registered health practitioners who perform non-surgical cosmetic procedures are published on the Ahpra website. Practice guidelines for medical practitioners in the cosmetic sector (2023) are on the Medical Board’s guidelines page.
While cosmetic procedures are out of scope for many practitioners, the guidelines apply to all regulated professions, futureproofing future entrants to the lucrative cosmetic industry.
Changes to advertising rules focus on higher risk procedures and require advertising to include information about the practitioner performing the procedures, strengthen the ban on the use of testimonials from social media influencers and introduce measures to stop the trivialisation or sexualisation of cosmetic procedures.
There is a mandatory seven-day cooling off period between first consultation and any procedures for people under 18 considering non-surgical cosmetic procedures and advertising aimed at under 18s is banned.
The new practice guidelines require practitioners to have more than foundational qualifications included in their initial training, before they perform non-surgical procedures like cosmetic injections. Anyone wanting to expand their scope of practice to include cosmetic procedures needs first to do further training or education. Nurses must complete a set period of practice before expanding their scope to include non-surgical cosmetic procedures.
The Expedited Specialist pathway is boosting the number of highly skilled, international medical specialists available to practise in Australian communities.
Data about the pathway are published. There are monthly summary reports of applications and registrations and now a detailed report on pathway activity and outcomes for the first six months of operation.
The detailed report shows where the new specialists have been approved to practise – 86% in identified areas of workforce shortage such as fast-growing outer metropolitan areas and 20% specifically in regional, rural or remote areas where it is harder to recruit.
According to the reports, the Board granted specialist registration to most specialist international medical graduates (SIMGs) in less than six weeks after complete applications were received.
By the end of August 2025, the Board had registered 290 SIMGs through the new Expedited Specialist pathway – 11 anaesthetists, 254 general practitioners, three obstetricians and gynaecologists, and 22 psychiatrists. SIMGs have now been registered to practise in all states and territories with most (87%) applicants having qualified in the United Kingdom.
The Board will continue monthly summary data reporting on the Expedited Specialist pathway and publish the detailed data report annually. The latest reports are on the Board’s website.
Applications are open for a community member on the Medical Board of Australia. Community members can be from any state or territory.
Applications close 19 October 2025.
To apply and for more information visit Ahpra’s Statutory appointments page.
The Board has approved the following:
Final year medical student? It’s time to apply for registration if you’re about to complete your studies. It’s a good idea to apply before you finish medical school, so we can start assessing your application while we wait for your graduate results.
You need to be registered to practise with the Medical Board before you can start work in your intern year.
First up you need to create an account in the Ahpra portal and then link multifactor authentication to it. Your portal is where you will manage all aspects of your registration throughout your career as a doctor.
There are step-by-step instructions and videos on how to create your Ahpra portal account and securely link your multifactor authentication app.
There are guides on completing your application for registration, tips for avoiding delays and FAQs on the Graduate applications page of the Ahpra website.
You may need to provide supporting documents with your application to prove that you meet the Medical Board’s registration standards, including for English language skills.
Your university will send us your graduation results. If you’ve already submitted all the paperwork required for registration, we aim to finalise your application within two weeks.
For more information, read the news item.
The Medical Board of Australia and Ahpra can be contacted by phone on 1300 419 495.
For more information, see the Medical Board of Australia website and the Ahpra website.
Lodge an enquiry form through the website under Contact us at the bottom of every web page.
Mail correspondence can be addressed to: Dr Susan O'Dwyer, Chair, Medical Board of Australia, GPO Box 9958, Melbourne, VIC 3001.
Please note: Practitioners are responsible for keeping up to date with the Board’s expectations about their professional obligations. The Board publishes standards, codes and guidelines as well as alerts in its newsletter. If you unsubscribe from this newsletter you are still required to keep up to date with information published on the Board’s website.
Comments on the Board newsletter are welcome, send your feedback and suggestions to [email protected].
For registration enquiries or contact detail changes, call the Ahpra customer service team on 1300 419 495 (from within Australia).
