Who will assign Healthcare Identifiers?
A national Healthcare Identifiers Service (HI Service) is being established to assign and maintain healthcare identifiers. Medicare Australia will be the initial operator of the HI Service. As a trusted government authority, Medicare has the national infrastructure, as well as the industry and community relationships needed to securely deliver and maintain the healthcare identifiers. The HI Service will be a separate and new Medicare Australia function, not linked to its funding or claims for payment functions. As a statutory agency Medicare Australia is governed by national legislation that sets out the scope of the functions it can perform and the privacy and security it must maintain.
