Medicare's Health Identifier Service

About Medicare's Health Identifier Service

The Federal, state and territory governments have developed a national Healthcare Identifiers Service (HI Service) which will uniquely identify healthcare providers and individuals who seek healthcare. Medicare Australia is the operator of the HI Service. The HI Service will give individuals and healthcare providers confidence that the right health information is associated with the right individual at the point of care.

• All Australians will be provided with a unique identifier called an IHI (Individual Healthcare Identifier) when seeking medical services.
• Healthcare Provider Individuals like GPs, Specialists, and allied health professionals such as optometrist, speech therapists and social workers will be provided with an HPI-I (Healthcare Provider Identifier-Individual).
• Healthcare Provider Organisations like state health departments, hospitals, medical practices, pathology or radiology laboratories and pharmacies will be provided with an HPI-O (Healthcare Provider Identifier- Organisation).

  IHIs have been created to be used by healthcare providers to improve the security and efficient management of an individual's personal health information with strict privacy laws governing how these numbers are used. IHIs do not replace Medicare or DVA numbers and do not affect the way medical benefits are claimed. For more information, see http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/provider/health-identifier/index.jsp