Workplace health

What delayed healthcare is costing your business

Around one in four Australians who see a GP wait longer than they feel is acceptable. Employers end up paying for that wait in absence, in presenteeism and in lost capacity.

Work out your number

By Christopher O'Donnell FACN 10 October 2026 7 min read

Unplanned absence already costs Australian employers more than $33 billion a year¹. Presenteeism, where people come to work unwell, has been estimated to cost the Australian economy even more ($34.1 billion in 2009–10)¹⁵. Part of it comes back to a problem employers can help with: people can't always see a clinician when they need one.

Australians are willing to get care. What stops them is access.

26%^2,3

waited longer than they felt was acceptable for a GP in 2024–25, up from 18.7% five years earlier
26.6%²

delayed seeing a GP, or didn't see one, when they needed to
47%²

of people who saw a GP for urgent care waited 24 hours or more
18.9%²

needed to see someone about their mental health in the past year
~$4,000¹

cost of unplanned absence per employee, per year

What delayed care costs an employer

Start with what you can see. On average, employees take around 11 days of unplanned absence a year. That costs over $4,000 per employee a year, and absence can account for 7–8% of payroll once direct wages and indirect costs are factored in¹.

The bigger cost is harder to see. When people can't get care, they still turn up, just unwell. The Productivity Commission puts the presenteeism cost of mental ill-health alone at up to $7 billion a year⁵. People with mental ill-health take an estimated 10 to 12 extra days off a year. On another 14 to 18 days, they work at reduced capacity⁵.

There is an upside. The same inquiry cited studies finding returns of $1 to $4 for every dollar invested in workplace mental health, with the strongest returns from programs that support people back to work⁵.

$33bn+¹

annual cost of unplanned absence to Australian employers
~$4,000¹

per employee, per year
Up to $7bn⁵

a year in presenteeism from mental ill-health at work

What that looks like by team size

What delayed care costs by team size, using national averages and one major EAP provider's usage rate
Team size	Cost of unplanned absence (~$4,000 per employee)	Likely to need mental health support this year (18.9%)	Reached at ~5% EAP use (one major provider's average)
20	~$80,000	~4	~1
50	~$200,000	~9	~3
100	~$400,000	~19	~5
250	~$1,000,000	~47	~13
500	~$2,000,000	~95	~25
1,000	~$4,000,000	~189	~50

Illustrative only. These are national averages applied to round headcounts, not a forecast or a promise of savings. Your numbers will vary with industry, age profile, location and existing programs.

For a 50-person business, absence is a $200,000 line item. About nine of those people are likely to need mental health support this year, and around three of them may delay or miss care. At around 5% use, an EAP would be used by two or three people across the whole business.

Why the gap exists

Time

In five years, the share of Australians who waited longer than they considered acceptable for a GP rose by almost 40%. Among people with a long-term condition it's now 28.7%. People aged 35–54, the core of most workforces, report unacceptable waits more than any other age group^2,3.

Location

In major cities, 46% of people who saw a GP for urgent care were seen within four hours. In outer regional and remote areas, only 30% were². Very remote Australia has around seven times fewer specialists per person than the major cities¹⁰.

Cost

Almost six in ten GP clinics now charge a gap fee, averaging $49.23 nationally for a standard consult. In Tasmania it's over $60, and in the ACT, where only around one in ten clinics fully bulk-bills, it's nearly $58⁶. About one in 13 Australians who needed a GP (7.7%) say cost was a reason they delayed or skipped a visit. For psychology it's worse: one in four people who needed a psychologist delayed or went without because of cost².

Spillover

Public hospital emergency departments recorded 9.1 million presentations in 2024–25, and around three in ten were classed as lower urgency^7,8. Roughly one in six ED patients believed a GP could have treated them². NSW Health estimates that every 1% fall in bulk-billing produces about 3,000 extra ED presentations⁹.

The system is full, not failing. It has the least slack exactly where and when working Australians need it.

Health doesn't keep office hours

Shift work, rosters, FIFO, weekend trading and caring responsibilities mean a lot of people can't see a doctor between 9 and 5 without losing time from work. A clinic visit during the day means booking ahead, travelling, waiting, being seen and travelling back. For a five-minute script renewal, that can cost half a day.

The need doesn't let up either. In 2024–25, 83.4% of Australians aged 15 and over saw a GP². The 2025 flu season ran 33 weeks, from May into December¹⁶, and the year ended with more than 500,000 laboratory-confirmed cases⁴.

Clinic visit

Book
Travel
Wait
Consult
Travel back

Telehealth

Request
Consult

The mental health gap is the widest

Nearly one in five Australians needed to see someone about their mental health in 2024–25, and more than a third of them (34.4%) delayed or missed care at least once².

Compare that with the standard workplace response. At one major EAP provider, annual use averaged around 5%⁵. The two figures measure different things, but together they point to a large gap. In one Australian study, men described low awareness, confidentiality worries and scepticism about counselling as reasons they didn't use their EAP¹⁷.

For many people, the first stop is a doctor they already know. More Australians take their mental health to a GP (12.5%) than to a psychologist (8.5%)², and 71% of GPs rank mental health among the top three reasons patients see them^11,12. It often starts as poor sleep, fatigue or stress. The mental health conversation comes after that.

Needed mental health support 18.9%
EAP use at one major provider ~5%

These measures use different populations, periods and methods. They are shown to illustrate scale, not as a like-for-like comparison.

Rural and regional teams feel it most

The mental health workforce gap widens with distance from the major cities. Very remote areas have about 75% fewer psychologists per person than the major cities, and 5.6 times less Medicare-subsidised mental health care¹³. In regional NSW, the town of Gulgong went 18 months without a working GP clinic, and local coal mines have helped fund doctor recruitment in the region¹⁴.

For employers with people spread across regional sites, mines, farms, logistics hubs or retail networks, a lack of local doctors is a workforce risk.

75%¹³

fewer psychologists per person in very remote areas
5.6×¹³

lower Medicare-subsidised mental health provision in very remote areas
7×¹⁰

fewer specialists per person in very remote areas

What better access looks like

Workplace health benefits usually fail in one of two ways: people never sign up, or they sign up and never use it. Fixing that means getting people to a clinician quickly and easily enough that they actually go.

Care outside business hours, so it fits around the working day
Care anywhere, with no travel and no waiting room, whether someone is in the CBD or on a remote site
A familiar starting point for mental health, a clinical consult rather than a cold call to a counselling line
Cover for the family, because a sick child takes a parent out of work too
Reporting you can act on, so you can see what share of your people actually use the benefit

How My Digital Health helps

My Digital Health is an Australian telehealth group. We deliver care nationally through a network of around 120 clinicians, including AHPRA-registered doctors, nurse practitioners and pharmacists. Nurse practitioners can assess, diagnose, prescribe and refer, which makes them well placed to close the gap between needing care and getting it.

We're QIP Health and NACOS accredited and LegitScript certified. For employers, that can mean on-demand telehealth, metabolic and weight programs, and menopause support at work, delivered under your wellbeing brand and reported back to you in aggregate. Reporting covers activity, response times and agreed outcome measures, de-identified. See how Clinicians as a Service works.

Do the sums for your business

Enter your headcount to see what the national averages suggest for your team.

Number of employees

A whole number from 1 to 100,000.

Unplanned absence cost: $200,000
People likely to need mental health support this year: 9
Of those, likely to miss out or delay: 3
People reached at ~5% EAP use (one major provider's average): 3

Illustrative only, based on national averages. Not a forecast or a promise of savings.

Let's close the gap for your team

Talk to us about what better access to care could look like across your workforce.

Talk to us

All figures are published national averages applied to headcount for illustration. They are not a forecast or a promise of outcomes. This page is general information for business decision-makers and is not medical advice. In an emergency, call 000.