Looking for a private midwife in Australia turns up several quite different arrangements: a midwife working on her own, a collective, a shared practice, or a publicly funded group practice run through a hospital. Which one you are looking at decides who you book with, who visits you, who invoices you and what happens when she is away. Two midwives can advertise what sounds like the same service and be organised completely differently behind it, and the words on their websites look much the same either way. This is what those arrangements actually are, and what each one changes for the family on the receiving end.
Key Takeaways
- The word on the website tells you very little. Ask how the practice is actually organised.
- In a collective you choose, rather than being assigned. That freedom is also why cover is her answer to give, not the collective’s.
- A shared practice is one business with more than one midwife, where cover is built in by design.
- Publicly funded midwifery group practice gives caseload care through a hospital, and availability varies by area.
- Whatever the arrangement, a midwife’s registration and endorsement belong to her, not to the practice.
How a private midwife in Australia works
Australian maternity care includes several models: care through a public maternity unit, shared care between a hospital and your GP, publicly funded midwifery group practice, care from a privately practising midwife, and care from a private obstetrician. Which of them you can access depends on where you live and what your pregnancy needs.
A private midwife in Australia is one you engage yourself, rather than being allocated to you through a hospital. That is the group this article is about.
A midwife in solo practice
One midwife runs her own practice, holds her own caseload, and is the only person you deal with.
It is the simplest to understand and usually the most personal. The questions worth asking are about capacity and cover: how many families she takes at once, how far ahead she books, and what happens when she is on leave or unwell. A midwife on her own will have an answer, and it is fair to ask for it.
A collective
A group of midwives who each run their own independent practice and come together under one shared name. They are not employees of a single business, and the collective does not take the bookings.
What it gives you is a shortcut: several midwives to compare in one place, usually with a shared standard of care they all work to. What it does not give you is a roster. You choose one midwife, you contact her directly, and she is the person who visits you and invoices you. If she is unavailable, that is hers to explain, because nobody is automatically covering for anyone else.
The question to ask a collective is which parts are shared and which are not. In most, the answer is that the name and the standard are shared, and the practice, the fee and the diary are not.
A shared private practice or partnership
Some private practices are one business with more than one midwife, where two or more share a caseload between them and cover for each other by design.
The trade is straightforward: you are less likely to be stuck if one midwife is away, and more likely to meet more than one person. Ask how the sharing works in practice. Would you have a primary midwife, or see whoever is on? Would you meet the second midwife beforehand, or only if something came up?
Publicly funded midwifery group practice
Worth knowing about even though it is not private care. In a midwifery group practice, a small team of midwives provides caseload care, so you have a known midwife through pregnancy, labour, birth and the early postnatal weeks, with a second midwife supporting her.
It is publicly funded, it is offered through a hospital rather than engaged by you, and availability varies enormously between areas. If having a known midwife is what you are after, ask your hospital whether it runs one before assuming private care is your only route. The idea itself is unpacked in what continuity of midwifery care means.
Nobody is allocated to you in a collective. That is the freedom in it, and it is also why the question about cover has to be asked of her, not of the name on the website.
How it works walks through a collective step by step, from first contact to the visit itself.
What the structure actually changes
Whatever the arrangement is called, four practical things follow from it:
- Who you book with. An individual midwife, or an organisation that assigns one.
- How many midwives you meet. One, a known pair, a small team, or whoever is rostered.
- Who invoices you, and how the rebate is claimed. In private care this sits with the midwife or her practice, and it differs between them.
- Who steps in if she cannot. Built-in cover, an informal arrangement, or nothing formal at all.
One thing that does not change
Whether a private midwife in Australia works alone or alongside others, her registration and her qualifications are her own. Endorsement in particular belongs to the individual, not to the practice she works in, and it is the thing that unlocks Medicare rebates for her care. Our article on what an endorsed midwife is explains what it covers.
Where EverNurture sits
EverNurture is a collective: four endorsed midwives, four independent practices, one place to find them. You choose your midwife, she invoices you, and the name exists to shorten the search rather than to sit between you.
Once you know which kind of arrangement you are after, choosing a midwife deals with picking the person.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a collective the same as a shared practice?
No. In a collective each midwife runs her own business and keeps her own diary, fees and books. In a shared private practice, one business employs or partners several midwives and they cover for each other. The difference matters most when your midwife is unavailable.
Who do I pay in a collective?
The midwife you booked with. She sets her fee, invoices you and handles the Medicare claim her own way. The collective does not take payment, which is also why fees can differ between the midwives listed under one name.
Is private midwifery care more expensive than the public system?
Public maternity care is free to eligible patients, so private care does carry a fee. Where a midwife is endorsed, Medicare rebates cover a substantial part of it for eligible families, which narrows the gap considerably. Ask the midwife for her fee and the likely rebate together.
How do I find out if my hospital runs a midwifery group practice?
Ask the maternity unit directly, or your GP when you are referred. Programs fill early in some areas and are not offered at all in others, so it is worth asking as soon as you know where you plan to give birth.
Conclusion
None of these arrangements is the correct one. A solo midwife, a collective, a shared practice and a hospital program all deliver good care, and they suit different families for different reasons.
What matters is knowing which you are looking at before you commit, because it decides who you deal with, who invoices you and who turns up if your midwife cannot. Ask that early and the rest of the decision gets much simpler.
Send a single enquiry, say what kind of support you are after and which midwife you would prefer if you have one in mind, and we will be in touch. You do not have to have chosen anyone first.