In the 1990s, it was a clinic the LGBTIQ community felt safe to disclose their sexuality.

Dr Soo joined the practice in 1996, about six months before founder Dr Peter Rowland was killed in what was was presumed to be a gay hate crime.

Its non-judgmental approach to healthcare saw the practice start seeing more and more patients from disadvantaged backgrounds.

These days it treats almost 50 per cent of the city's methadone users and 85 per cent of patients are bulk billed.

But like other GPs across Canberra and the country, Dr Soo has struggled to run a viable business while bulk billing a large percentage of patients.

The past two years she has run at a significant loss.

"We're caught between trying to provide really good care but seeing a lot of patients who can't afford to pay, then bulk billing them," she said.

The practice will next month move to Tuggeranong where it will bulk bill all patients but charge them a yearly membership fee between $60 to $120.

It is based on the model used by the National Health Co-op which has a number of clinics across Canberra.

Dr Soo was awarded a $500,000 ACT government grant last year to open a practice in Tuggeranong to improve the region's access to bulk billing doctors. Soon after she decided to use the co-op method in the hope of making the practice more sustainable.

Health co-ops are contentious among Canberra doctors and some were unhappy when another co-op was given a government grant to open a bulk billing practice.

They argue a co-op cannot be considered bulk billing practice as the patient has an out of pocket fee. Some have even accused providers of Medicare fraud.

Others, like Dr Soo, see it as part of the solution to falling bulk billing rates, in the absence of a meaningful rise in the federal government's medicare rebates.

"Given the continued erosion of the medicare rebate, we're almost really seeing two streams of general practice emerging," she said.

One stream includes the large bulk billing clinics which see as many patients as possible and take advantage of high billing sessions.

Then there are the traditional high quality general practices which will book no more than three or four patients an hour and spend time providing holistic care, Dr Soo said.

"We are going to have a bulk billing practice but we also aim to continue to provide top quality care," she said.

"I've got bunch of very altruistic doctors working for me who strongly believe in providing quality general practice care."

Dr Soo said she approached Medicare about the legality of charging a joining fee and was told it was not an issue.

"The interpretation by Medicare was that the money from charging a co-op fee was used to help run the practice and was not directly used to subsidise consultations," she said.

She said ACT Health could do more locally to improve people's access to general practice.

She said GPs could be incentivised to treat patients out of hours for the same amount of money a consultation at the territory's nurse led walk in centres costs the taxpayer - about $190 per patient.

"When GPs jump up and down about it, my message is if you want ACT Health to take notice of you, you've got to learn to think like a politician," she said.

"They see walk in clinics as a win win situation. They get the community saying that's great and lots of great headlines."

The Tuggeranong clinic will open in August.