Hi Yael,
Regardless of the healthcare card and the medicare bulk billing if over two years since last consultation-all optometrists charge for contact lens consultations as medicare do not rebate us for them. yes you can see an opthal for the test but a lot of them use outdated equipment for testing as their specialty is eye disorders.The consultation fee is usually around the 60 to 90 mark depending on the practise,unless your prescription is a combined power of a - or +5.00 which is quite bad. O therwise ridiculously so medicare deem this to be cosmetic. i know ridiculous but true. At opsm on line you can get great deals on contact lenses which are comparable with the online stores and if you call the local store they will price match any price you can get from anywhere just talk to the manager. Make sure you get the entire prescription when its written. Some optometrists will be tricky and not write down all the data you need. you need brand,base curve,and sphere power as well as any astigmatic numbers if there are any. HTH.