Doctors groups will meet to co-ordinate a fierce campaign against the federal government's decision to extend the Medicare rebate freeze to 2020.

Health Minister Sussan Ley is hailing the budget as a way to bridge the divide between city and country but doctors say rural patients are being exiled to healthcare Siberia.

Doctors are warning of a fierce campaign in the lead-up to a July 2 election, bigger than the one that forced the federal government to declare its short-lived GP co-payment proposal "dead, buried and cremated" within months.

Rural Doctors Association president Ewen McPhee says meetings will be planned to co-ordinate a strategy after Tuesday's budget extended a freeze on Medicare rebates, which doctors say amounts to a GP co-payment "by stealth".

Dr McPhee says the freeze is bigger than the GP co-payment.

"This is a war on general practice," he told AAP.

"It's important people realise that universal bulk-billing is dead, buried and cremated."

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Frank Jones has also vowed to step up the campaign against the freeze, lobbying all parties and advising patients on how it will affect them.

Tuesday's budget extended by two years to 2020 a four-year indexation freeze on the Medicare rebate it pays for services like GP visits, saving almost $1 billion.

Doctors say they can't keep absorbing the costs, meaning less will bulk-bill and fees will rise.

Ms Ley insists the budget "will help bridge the city-country divide on health".

But Dr McPhee describes it as the healthcare equivalent of "deepest, darkest Siberia" for rural and remote patients.

He's already spoken to country doctors that will shut up shop after Tuesday's announcement because they can't afford to function any more.

"They're going to walk away from their country towns."

The budget made no difference to closing the rural/urban divide in Australia, and made no difference in closing the gap for indigenous Australians, he said.

In some towns, doctors have already started charging patients to meet costs but in other towns where patients can't afford co-payments, doctors are closing their practice.

Dr McPhee predicts people who can no longer afford to see a GP will turn up at hospital emergency departments instead.

There were also concerns about risks to quality and safety, as doctors cut corners to make ends meet.

Complex services have fallen by the wayside with doctors joining the "hamsters on the wheel", billing more quick item numbers to keep themselves afloat rather than deliver quality care, Dr McPhee said.

Ms Ley said the extension was in recognition of the fiscal environment and the new Healthier Medicare trial, which includes new payment models for GPs treating chronically-ill patients.

She insisted the government remained committed to a possible review of the pause as further improvements and inefficiencies are identified.

Ms Ley has previously refused to rule out the possibility of costs being passed on to patients, insisting her department's modelling shows changes will be minimal.