Summary

People with chronic conditions may be eligible for Medicare-subsidised health services to help plan and coordinate their care and access allied health services (up to 5 services per calendar year). In 2020–21, 16% of the Australian population (4 million people) used a general practitioner (GP) Chronic Disease Management Plan (AIHW 2021a).

This report uses findings from the Coordination of Health Care Study to describe the use of chronic disease management (CDM) items and Medicare-subsidised allied health services by people aged 45 and over who had at least one long-term health condition in 2016. This population was chosen for analysis as CDM items are made available to patients with chronic conditions.

All data presented refer to people aged 45 and over who had at least one visit to a GP between November 2014 and November 2015. Their Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) service use relates to the care they received during the 2016 calendar year. These people are referred to as ‘patients’ in this report.

Coming soon

A web report providing in-depth analysis of the use of Medicare CDM items and Medicare-subsidised allied health services will be released soon and will complement this report.

Patients with diabetes were the most likely to access any CDM item (64%)

In 2016, among patients aged 45 and over with at least one long-term health condition, one third (33%; 2.2 million patients) used an MBS CDM item

Patients with diabetes (20%), effects of a stroke (18%) and osteoporosis (15%) were the most likely to use all 5 Medicare-subsidised individual allied health services they were eligible for