Spending on non-admitted patient care

This section presents information on the main sources of funding for non-admitted patient services, including:

funding sources for individual and group service events
funding sources by type of service (Tier 2 Clinic Class).

In 2019–20, non-admitted patient activity is measured using data from 2 different sources:

clinic-level data from the National Non-admitted Patient Care aggregate Database (NNAPC(agg)D) are used to describe overall non-admitted patient care reported
episode-level data from the National Non-admitted Patient episode-level Database (NNAP(el)D) accounts for the 75% of non-admitted patient service events. These service events are used to provide more detailed information, including:
- patient characteristics of those who used these services
- how the services were delivered
- the type of care provided.

Non-admitted patient services are funded through a range of channels. The funding sources have been assigned to the following four broad categories:

Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS)
Department of Veterans’ Affairs
Compensable—which includes service events where the funding source is reported as Worker’s compensation, Motor vehicle third party personal claim, or Other compensation
Other—any funding sources that do not fall within the categories above (including Health service budget, Private health insurance and Self-funded).

Additional information about key terms can be found in the 'More information about the data' section below.

Explore the data

In the data visualisation below, you can explore clinic-level data on non-admitted patient service events by:

funding source
individual and group service events
Tier 2 clinic class.

Data on expenditure on non-admitted patient care services is not available as part of this data collection, however information about spending on public hospitals in Australia can be found on the Spending on hospitals page of the MyHospitals site.

Highlights

Funding source

Of the 38.2 million total service events reported to NNAPC(Agg)D, in 2019–20:

the majority of non-admitted service events (88%) were funded by sources categorised as Other funding
12% of service events were funded through the Medicare Benefits Scheme, and less than 1% were funded by either the Department of Veterans’ Affairs or Compensable sources
there was variation across states and territories in funding sources for non-admitted patient service events. For example, the proportion of service events funded through the Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS) varied from 4.5% in Western Australia to 25% in Victoria.

Tier 2 clinic class

The source of funding for non-admitted patient service events varies by clinic type and across states and territories.

In 2019–20:

in Procedural clinics and Medical consultation clinics, three-quarters of all of service events were funded by Other sources (74% and 75% respectively, and a quarter through the MBS (25% and 24% respectively)
in clinics providing Diagnostic services, 83% of service events were funded by Other sources and 17% through the MBS
in Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics, 99% of service events were funded by Other sources and less than 1% was funded through the MBS
there was variation across states and territories in funding sources for non-admitted patient service events provided in different clinic types.

More information about the data Expand

What other information is available?

More information on these data are available in the Non-admitted patient care 2019–20 data tables, refer to tables 4.1–S4.5.

Definitions of the terms used in this section are available in the Glossary and technical specifications are available in the Info & Downloads area, in the About the data section.

Funding source

There are four funding sources that can be could be assigned to non-admitted patient care service events:

Medicare Benefits Scheme
Department of Veterans’ Affairs
Compensable—which includes:
- Worker’s compensation
- Motor vehicle third party personal claim
- Other compensation
Other—which includes:
- Health service budget (including Reciprocal Health Care Agreements, or where no charge was raised due to hospital decision). This category includes both state/territory and Australian Government contributions
- Other hospital or public authority (contracted care)
- Department of Defence
- Correctional facilities
- Private health insurance
- Self-funded
- Other funding source
- Not known.

Tier 2 clinic class

Tier 2 clinic class categorises a hospital’s non-admitted services into classes which are generally based on the nature of the service provided and the type of clinician providing the service.

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. An allied health professionals include a range of occupations that provide diagnostic, technical and therapeutic services to the aged care, mental health, disability and health sectors.

More information about Tier 2 clinic classes can be found in the section Non-admitted patient service events inthe Non-admitted patient activity area of the MyHospitals site. Alternatively, the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority (IHPA) website contains information on the Tier 2 Non-Admitted Services Classification.