Can private sector health service providers use the Medicare number......

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Question: Can private sector health service providers use the Medicare number (or other Commonwealth government-assigned identifiers, such as the DVA number) for their own purposes, including for managing their clients’ health records?

No - under NPP7, the Medicare number and other Commonwealth identifiers (eg. the Department of Veterans' Affairs and Health Care Card numbers) should only be used by private sector health service providers to fulfil their obligations to the agency that assigned the number.

Ordinarily, in a health sector context, these numbers must only be collected when providing care to a client – where the use of the number relates to the authorisation and financing of the care episode by the relevant government agency. Once collected, the number must only be used or disclosed to fulfil the health service provider’s obligations to the relevant agency (ie. the agency that assigned the number).

More information on NPP7 and the health sector can be found in the Guidelines on Privacy in the Private Health Sector.

The limitations imposed by NPP7 do not apply to identifiers issued by State or Territory government agencies, or to identifiers created and used in the private sector by individual practitioners and health services.