Medicare-subsidised palliative medicine attendance and case conference services
This chapter provides information related to Medicare-subsidised palliative medicine attendance and case conference services provided by palliative medicine physicians or specialists and the characteristics of people who received them over the period 2015–16 to 2024–25. Further information about how these services are identified through the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) data is provided in Box 1 and the Data source.
The information in this chapter was last updated in May 2026.
Box 1: Identifying palliative care services in MBS data
The data presented in this chapter relate only to palliative medicine attendances/consultations and case conferencing services that are both provided by palliative medicine physicians/specialists and are claimed under specialist palliative care MBS item numbers. For more information, see Data source.
Note that palliative medicine physicians and specialists may, at times, use other MBS items when attending to palliative care patients and that other health professionals also attend to terminally ill patients and provide palliative care. Unless otherwise stated, these items are not included in the data here, as they are not claimed specifically as a palliative care-related service and cannot be identified in the MBS data.
Key points
In 2024–25, for Medicare-subsidised palliative medicine attendance and case conference services provided by palliative medicine physicians/specialists:
- 15,900 people received these services (58.4 people per 100,000 population)
- 78,100 services were provided, at an average of 4.9 services per person
- 5 in 6 services (85% or 66,200) were for attendances in a consulting room or hospital, 3.6% (2,800) were for attendances in other settings and 11.6% (9,100) were for case conference services.
The number of Medicare-subsidised palliative medicine attendance and case conference services has declined from a peak of 90,600 services in 2018–19 to 78,100 services in 2024-25, with an average annual decrease of 2.4% over five years. This was broadly consistent with the pattern observed for the number of people receiving these services over the same period.