About the method
Reporting year
Data are reported in the financial year in which an attendance/service occurred and not the financial year in which a benefit for the service was processed.
Number of patients
'Number of patients' refers to patients who had at least one eligible service in total (for the respective service type) in the reporting year, as identified through the Patient Identification Numbers in the Medicare claim records. Totals and subtotals of patients may be less than the sum of each service group as a patient may receive more than one type of service but will be counted only once in the relevant total.
Percentage of people or proportion of population
The terms 'people' or 'population' refer to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Estimated Resident Population (ERP) at 30 June at the end of the previous financial year (for example, 30 June 2017 for 2017–18 results). This release used the final ERP for years up to 30 June 2022, revised ERP at 30 June 2023 and preliminary ERP at 30 June 2024.
Disaggregation by age and sex
In addition to results for the total population in an area, results by Primary Health Network (PHN) area and Statistical Area Level 3 (SA3) are reported by sex and by the following age groups:
- PHN area level analysis by 6 age groups (0–14, 15–24, 25–44, 45–64, 65–79, 80+)
- SA3 analysis by 4 age groups (0–24, 25–44, 45–64, 65+). Due to smaller populations, SA3 results by age and sex are reported for the 'total' Medicare service groups only.
Data were not published if it met any of the suppression rules (see suppression).
Measures that are disaggregated by age group and sex use the patient's date of birth and sex as recorded at the last service rendered (for any Medicare Benefits Schedule service) in the reporting year. Where multiple services were rendered on the last date of service, age and sex was taken from the last date of processing on that date of service.
If a patient's age was recorded as unknown or over 116, their records were excluded from the age group results. Similarly, if a patient's sex was missing, their records were excluded from the sex group results.
Age-standardised rates
Age-standardised rates are hypothetical rates that would have been observed if the populations studied had the same age distribution as the standard population. This facilitates comparisons between populations with different age structures and changes over time within an area. This adjustment is important because the prevalence of health conditions and rates of health service use vary with age.
The direct method of age-standardisation was applied to the data. Age-standardised rates were derived by calculating crude rates by 5-year age groupings of 0–4 years to 85+ years. These crude rates were then given a weight that reflected the age composition of the standard population (ABS ERP for Australia as at 30 June 2001). If a patient's age was recorded as unknown or over 116, their records were excluded from the age-standardised rates.
Suppression
Information about an area was suppressed (marked 'n.p. – not published') if any of the following conditions were met:
- There were fewer than 6 patients or fewer than 6 health service providers in the area (SA3/PHN) – note a patient/provider was only included if they provided or received at least one service in the area.
- One provider provided more than 85% of services or 2 providers provided more than 90% of services.
- One patient received more than 85% of services or 2 patients received more than 90% of services.
- The number of attendances/services was fewer than 20 for an area.
- The total population of an area was fewer than 1,000.
- The population of the reported age group or sex group in an area was fewer than 300.
Consequential suppression was applied to manage confidentiality. This is the process of suppressing information which, whilst not necessarily confidential, may be used to derive confidential data.
For age-standardised rates, if the population of an area (denominator) was fewer than 30 in any of the standard age groupings, then the rate was marked 'interpret with caution', as these rates are considered potentially volatile. For each of these interpret with caution rates, the effect of increasing the numerator by one on the rank of the area was examined. If the rank changed considerably so that the area was on the cusp of changing 2 deciles, the rate was suppressed.