Medicare-subsidised GP, specialist, nursing and allied health attendances
The Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) data collection contains claims data for Medicare services subsidised by the Australian Government. This report includes information on Medicare-subsidised services provided by the following community-based health professionals:
- General practitioner (GP) attendances:
- GP chronic disease management attendances (also referred to as “CDM plans”, includes preparation and review of GP management plans, team care arrangements and multidisciplinary care plans)
- Medication management review attendances
- Nursing and/or Aboriginal health worker attendances (includes nurse practitioners)
- Specialist attendances:
- Geriatricians (includes Geriatrician Referred Patient Assessment and Management Plan attendances, which accounted for 42% of geriatrician attendances for people living in the community and 52% of geriatrician attendances for people living in residential aged care)
- Psychiatrists
- Neurologists
- General Physicians
- Allied health care attendances:
- Podiatrists
- Optometrists
More information on each service provider can be found in the Technical guide.
It should be noted that these data only include services receiving a Medicare rebate. People may also access services outside of the Medicare system.
These data combine face-to-face and telehealth attendances. New MBS items for telehealth were introduced in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis year for this study, 2019, is before these changes, and the number of telehealth attendances was not large enough to report separately.
Dementia diagnostic information is not available in the MBS, so it was not possible to distinguish between dementia-specific services and services for the management of other health issues.
For a discussion about interpretation of variation in MBS services, see Using non-hospital Medicare services data.