07 March 2008

The Australian Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, has issued a revised set of Guidelines covering the handling of claims information collected under the Medicare and Pharmaceutical Benefits programs.

"The Guidelines seek to maintain a high level of privacy protection for Australians' claims information, while ensuring that the regulation does not stand in the way of Government agencies' ability to help the delivery of a high standard of health outcomes," Ms Curtis said.

The Guidelines are legally binding on all Government agencies and ensure they only use and link Medicare and PBS claims information for limited purposes and in particular circumstances. The new Guidelines will take effect from 1 July 2008, until which time the existing Guidelines remain in force.

The Guidelines were first issued in 1993 and have been amended several times. Key features of the new Guidelines include:

• They reinforce that the National Health Act prohibits any Government agency from storing information obtained from Medicare or PBS on the one database.
• They require Medicare to report annually to the Privacy Commissioner on how many records from each program are linked, under what authority they are linked, and an indication of the period they are retained or why they were not destroyed.
• They allow Medicare to link claims information to provide it to a person who has requested access to their information.

The Guidelines are the result of an extensive consultation process with the public, private and community sectors.

The Guidelines are available here.