The vast majority of funding to deliver the ACT Government's signature election pledge - a major $500 million expansion at Canberra Hospital - will not eventuate until at least 2020, budget documents show.
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Chief Minister Andrew Barr released the budget on Tuesday, with many health-related announcements mooted before the tabling of the official documents in the legislative assembly.
But the budget shows most of the funding for the government's $500 million new Surgical Procedures, Interventional Radiology and Emergency (SPIRE) centre at Canberra Hospital was pushed beyond the budget's forward estimates.
The budget papers show the government will spend $3 million in 2017-18 and a further $3 million in 2018-19 on planning and design works, with $30 million to start capital works in 2019-20 and $200 million for more capital works in 2020-21.
Before the election, Mr Barr indicated the new centre would be open "around 2022", and cost $650 million, but the budget papers outline spending only $500 million on the project.
But with only $236 million allocated over the next four years, at least $250 million more would be needed to complete the project, which may delay the opening beyond 2023.
However, the government has put up the cash to deliver on a range of health election promises over the next four years, given healthcare was a centrepiece of last year's election campaign.
Among the were extra funding for more nurses, two extra mobile dental vans, funds to develop a preventative health strategy, more acute mental health beds and finishing the University of Canberra Public Hospital by 2018.
Other initiatives included $3 million to start planning work on a new northern suburbs hospital, $12 million over four years for an indigenous health centre $2.7 million for a new University of Canberra clinical nursing school, which were announced before the budget was released.
Australian Medical Association's ACT branch president Dr Steve Robson largely welcomed other significant budget injections, including the $23 million mental health package and the significant $70 million upgrade for the Centenary Womens and Childrens' Hospital.
But he said there was a "downside" to the budget, with a growing shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists in the ACT and what he dubbed "a crisis in the adult acute mental health service".
Dr Robson said while many factors played into those issues, there was a need for greater workforce planning in the mental health space and more stability for psychiatrists to keep and hold their Canberra jobs.
Both Dr Robson and Royal Australian College of General Practitioners NSW and ACT chairman Dr Guan Yeo backed the government's $1 million pledge to help incentivise higher bulk billing rates.
But Dr Yeo said it was sad to see another year where more was being invested into the hospital, instead of a greater focus on preventative health, and some $14 million to be spent on new nurse-led walk in centres in Gungahlin, Weston Creek and the inner north was undercutting GPs.
"Gungahlin has nine general practices in Gungahlin town centre and two in Franklin - and five of these are fully bulk billing all of their patients," he said.
"One GP has also purchased land to open up a new bulk billing medical centre with a capacity for eight to ten GPs.
"These are GPs who have recognised their patients' needs, invested in servicing those needs, but are now being undercut by an expensive Walk In Centre."
