Hospitals
Non-admitted patient clinic types
Non-admitted patient care can be provided by a range of different types of clinics. These clinics can be described based on the nature of the service provided, and by the predominant specialisation of the clinic based on the clinician, patient condition, patient population group or type of care.
The Tier 2 Non-Admitted Services Classification (Tier 2) is used by the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA) to classify a hospital’s non-admitted services for funding purposes in Australian public hospitals. The classification provides a standard framework under which clinics providing similar services can be grouped together. Clinics may provide a range of services; when this occurs, the clinic is classified based on its predominant activity, and all non-admitted patient service events provided by a clinic are classified to a single Tier 2 category.
Clinics are first categorised by the nature of the non-admitted service provided. The major categories are:
- Procedural clinics – which provide minor surgical and non-surgical procedures (that do not require the patient to be admitted) by a surgeon or other medical specialist
- Medical consultation clinics – typically provided by a medical or nurse practitioner. There may also be input from allied health personnel and/or clinical nurse specialists
- Diagnostic service clinics – which provide diagnostic services within a specific field of medicine or condition. These services include imaging, screening, clinical measurement and pathology
- Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics – which provide services by an allied health professional or clinical nurse specialist.
Clinics are further categorised by the type of clinician providing the service, usually based on the speciality or profession of the clinician. There are also classes for specialist clinics which treat patients with specific conditions. For example, there are classes for specialist burns clinics, transplant clinics and cystic fibrosis clinics.
Explore the data
The data visualisation below provides information on non-admitted clinic types (Tier 2 clinic class) and by service delivery setting.
Tier 2 Clinic class
This table shows the number of non-admitted patient service events in 2022–23. Data is presented by Tier 2 clinic class and service delivery setting. National data is available. In 2022–23, there were 25.0 million service events which were on the hospital campus of the healthcare provider and 8.4 million service events which were off the hospital campus of the healthcare provider.
Service delivery setting
This table shows the number of non-admitted patient service events in 2022–23. Data is presented by Tier 2 Clinic class (clinic type). State and territory data are available for allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist clinics, diagnostic clinics, medical consultation clinics and procedural clinics. In 2022–23, there were 222,200 COVID–19 Vaccinations performed in procedural clinics.
Non-admitted patient clinic type overview
In 2024–25, of the 43.6 million non-admitted patient service events provided in public hospitals:
- Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics accounted for just over half of all service events (52%, 22.7 million)
- Medical consultation clinics accounted for 1 in 3 service events (32%, 14.1 million)
- Diagnostic services accounted for 8.2% (3.6 million) of service events
- Procedural clinics accounted for 7.5% (3.3 million) of service events.
In total, 617 public hospitals or other service providers delivered non-admitted patient service events in at least one clinic type. One-quarter of these hospitals (24%) were major hospitals (Principal referral and women’s and children’s hospitals, Public acute group A hospitals and Public acute group B hospitals), and they provided 79% of all non-admitted patient service events.
Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics
Of the 22.7 million service events provided in Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics:
- 1 in 8 were delivered in Midwifery and maternity clinics (12%, 2.8 million)
- 5.7% (1.30 million) were delivered in Physiotherapy clinics
- 5.6% (1.27 million) were delivered in Hospital avoidance programs.
Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinic service events were provided in 601 public hospitals or other services.
Medical consultation clinics
Of the 14.1 million service events provided in Medical consultation clinics:
- just under 1 in 10 were delivered in Orthopaedics clinics (8.9%, 1.2 million service events)
- 7.4% were delivered in obstetric clinics for management of pregnancy with or without complications (1.0 million service events)
- 7.1% were delivered in Medical oncology (consultation) clinics (997,000 service events).
Medical consultation clinic service events were provided in 421 public hospitals or other services.
Diagnostic services
Of the 3.6 million service events provided in Diagnostic services clinics:
- 41% (1.5 million service events) were provided in General imaging clinics
- more than 1 in 4 were provided in Pathology (microbiology, haematology, biochemistry) clinics (28%, 998,000 service events). Almost all service events of these clinic types were reported by New South Wales
- 12% were provided in Clinical measurement clinics (438,000 service events).
There was also great variability in the provision of other services through diagnostic services clinics across states and territories. This reflects the different arrangements for provision of these services across jurisdictions and differences in data collection and reporting for these services.
Diagnostic services clinic service events were provided in 295 public hospitals or other services.
Procedural clinics
Of the 3.3 million service events provided in Procedural clinics:
- 3 in 10 were provided by Dental clinics (30%, 980,000 service events)
- around 1 in 5 were provided by Radiation therapy – treatment clinics (19%, 608,000 service events)
- just under 1 in 6 were provided by Chemotherapy treatment clinics (15%, 500,000 service events).
Procedural clinic service events were provided in 368 public hospitals or other services.
These data are sourced from the National Non-admitted Patient Care (aggregate) Database and the National Non-admitted Patient (episode-level) Database. More information on these data is available in tables 3.1–3.6 in the Non-admitted patient care 2024–25 data tables [XLSX 142kB]. Definitions of the terms used in this section are available in the Glossary.
The classification used for non-admitted activity is the Tier 2 Non-Admitted Services Classification. Tier 2 categorises a hospital’s non-admitted services into classes that are generally based on the nature of the service provided and the type of clinician providing the service. More information about the classification is available on the IHACPA website - Tier 2 Non-Admitted Services Classification | IHACPA.