Driver
Rates of accessing/utilisation of health services
General Practitioner (GP) visits, health assessments (Medicare Benefit 715), chronic disease care items (Team Care arrangement and GP Management Plan)
Data tables appear under figures
Measure 1
Rate of GP visits
Nationally in 2022-23, 769.3 per 1,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (about four in five) attended non‑referred GP visits. This is a decrease from 823.9 per 1,000 people in 2016‑17 and is the lowest rate between these two reporting periods (figure SE1e.1).
Measure 2
Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-specific health checks or assessments, by location of assessment
Nationally in 2023-24, 251.3 per 1,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (about one in four) had Indigenous‑specific health checks or assessments. This is an increase from 233.0 per 1,000 in 2016-17 and is the highest rate between these reporting periods, with the exception of the peak in 2018-19 (255.8 per 1,000 people) (figure SE1e.2). Nationally in 2023-24, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people mainly received Indigenous-specific health checks or assessments at health facilities or residential aged care (99%), with 1% obtaining checks via telehealth (table SE1e.2).
Measure 3
Rate of chronic disease care items (under Team Care Arrangements and GP Management Plans)
Nationally in 2022-23, 98.3 per 1,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people received chronic disease care under General Practitioner Management Plans, while 83.7 per 1,000 received chronic disease care under Team Care Arrangements. This is higher than 2021-22 (90.6 and 77.4 per 1,000 people, respectively) but it is a decrease since 2016‑17 (from 100.1 and 85.3 per 1,000 people, respectively) (figure SE1e.3).
Indicator data specifications
Related Outcome: | Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people enjoy long and healthy lives. |
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Related target: | Close the Gap in life expectancy within a generation, by 2031. |
Indicator: | Rates of accessing/utilisation of health services (General Practitioner (GP) visits, health assessments (Medicare Benefit 715), chronic disease care items (Team Care arrangement and GP management plan)) |
Measures: | There are three measures for this indicator. Measure 1 is the rate of people who received one or more non‑referred GP services per year, defined as: Numerator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who accessed non-referred GP services Denominator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the population and is presented as a rate per 1,000 people. Measure 2 is the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who had Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander‑specific health checks or assessments, by assessment locations (telehealth, health facility and residential aged care), defined as: Numerator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who had Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) health checks/assessments that are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander‑specific by assessment locations Denominator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the population and is presented as a rate per 1,000 people. Measure 3 is the rate of people who accessed chronic disease care under GP Management Plans (GPMPs) and Team Care Arrangements (TCAs), defined as: Numerator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who accessed MBS services for chronic disease care, separately for GPMPs and TCAs Denominator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the population and is presented as a rate per 1,000 people. |
Indicator established: | National Agreement on Closing the Gap July 2020 |
Latest dashboard update for the indicator: | 12 March 2025 |
Indicator type: | Driver |
Interpretation of change: | For all measures, a high or increasing proportion is generally desirable as indicates greater access to services, but access to services should be considered in the context of population need. |
Data source(s): | Numerator (all measures) Name: Medicare data Frequency: Annual Documentation Denominator (all measures) Name: Estimates and projections for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians Frequency: Annual (updated data for all years included in the March 2025 Dashboard update) Documentation(links): http://www.mbsonline.gov.au/internet/mbsonline/publishing.nsf/Content/Home |
Data provider: | Numerator (measures 1 and 3) Provider name: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Provider area: Indigenous Group Numerator (measure 2) Provider name: Department of Health Provider area: MBS Analytics Section Denominator (all measures) Provider name: Australian Bureau of Statistics Provider area: Demography |
Baseline year: | All measures (updated in March 2025) 2016-17 |
Latest reporting period: | Measures 1 and 3 (updated in March 2025) 2022-23 Measure 2 (updated in March 2025) 2023-24 |
Disaggregations: | Measure 1 State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status. Measure 2 State and territory and Australia, by location of assessment. Measure 3 State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status, by chronic disease care. |
Computation: | All measures Numerator divided by denominator multiplied by 1,000. Age‑standardised rates (measures 1 and 3) are provided for context, to allow for comparisons between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous people. Age‑standardised rates are calculated using the direct method of age standardisation. This is a standard methodology and consists of:
The MBS data does not include services:
Counting rules Measures 1 and 3 The reference period is the Date‑of‑Processing (DOP). Data by geographic location is based on the patient’s geographic location which is determined using their Medicare enrolment address at the DOP. Unallocated patients are included in the Australian total. GP services are episodes of care and include both physical visits and telehealth services. Measure 1 Includes people who accessed non-referred GP services, including the following Medicare Australia ‘Broad Type of Service’ (BTOS) groups:
Non‑referred GP services include GP, vocationally registered GP, enhanced primary care, practice nurse items under BTOS group 0110 and other non-referred services related MBS items 139, 16400, 91850, 91855, 92142 and 92145 (introduced on 30 March 2020), but excludes other practice nurse items, specialist and other services that are referred to receive Services Australia Medicare reimbursement. Measure 2 Includes people who accessed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander‑specific health checks or assessments, including for the following locations/MBS items:
Reportedly separately for health facility and residential aged care (combined) and telehealth. As a person can have multiple assessments at different assessment locations in a given year, the sum of people across assessment locations may be greater than the total number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who had health checks or assessments. Measure 3 Includes people who accessed chronic disease care, including the following Chronic Disease Management (CDM) items:
Reported separately for Team Care Arrangements and GP Management Plans. Denominator (all measures): Estimated population as at 31 December:
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Data quality considerations: | All measures MBS data do not give a comprehensive picture of actual service delivery for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as some service delivery (particularly in remote areas) is not covered fully under the Medicare system. For example, MBS data do not include services provided in the public health system or under other arrangements that do not attract an MBS claim (for example, some Aboriginal Medical Services/Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled health organisations and state/territory health services). Measures 1 and 3 Medicare data have been adjusted for under-identification in the Voluntary Indigenous Identifier (VII) database. Indigenous rates are therefore modelled and should be interpreted with caution. Estimates generated by the adjustment methodology for a given period will vary according to the point in time at which they are calculated, as the adjustment factors will be updated regularly to account for the ongoing change in the population coverage of the VII sample. More information on VII data is available at VII Framework. Measure 2 The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-specific Residential Aged Care Facility (RACF) items began in 2020‑21 and do not have enough volume to be reported on their own so these are combined with the Health facility items from that reporting year. Prior to 10 December 2020, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in RACFs had been able to access non-Indigenous specific health assessments performed by GPs and other medical professionals. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rates reported for this indicator have been revised down compared to previous reporting on the dashboard. This follows from the release of 2021 Census-based Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population data. Please refer to the How to interpret the data page for more information. Comparisons of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rates over time should be used with caution. Increasing health service usage rates may reflect improving/increasing Indigenous identification within administrative data, rather than changes in underlying health service usage rates. Please refer to the How to interpret the data page for more information. |
Future reporting: | Data for measures 1 and 3 will be revised once the Commonwealth Department of Health approve the Health and Aged Care Indigenous Identifier (HACII) for use. The Department has advised that the method of identifying Indigenous status in Medicare data is currently transitioning from the Voluntary Indigenous Identifier (VII) to the HACII. The Department no longer provides data based on the VII, and the HACII is in the process of clearance consultation and validation and is not anticipated to be finalised in time for data provision for the March 2025 dashboard update. Future reporting will seek to include the following additional disaggregations:
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