MEDICARE AND PRIVACY Children can apply for their own Medicare card (and number) when they turn 15, without parental consent . Those under...
MEDICARE AND PRIVACY Children can apply for their own Medicare card (and number) when they turn 15, without parental consent . Those under 15 can apply with parental consent . Young people do not necessarily have to have their own Medicare card to seek a health service that attracts a Medicare rebate independently of their parents . Health professionals may accept the Medicare number linked to the patient’s parents without physically seeing the card . Medicare records include the identity and specialty of the provider of a health service and the type of service received . If a young person has their own Medicare card, parents and guardians cannot access Medicare record information without the consent of the young person .
If the young person is still on the family Medicare card and aged 14 or 15, generally their consent must be obtained before information about Medicare records is released to parents or guardians . Parents and guardians have the right to request Medicare Australia to approach health providers about whether they will release information about their adolescent child . Once a child is 16, Medicare can only give information to parents or guardians with the young person’s consent . EHEALTH RECORDS AND PRIVACY The eHealth system is designed to contain an electronic summary of a person’s key health information such as prescribed medications, allergies and treatments they have received . Health practitioners can upload health information to the eHealth record for individual patients and view the information in it uploaded by other practitioners .
Young people under 18 may have an eHealth record . A person with parental responsibility for a person under 18 can register for an eHealth record on their child’s behalf . The parent can then access and control the eHealth record of that young person on their behalf as an “Authorised Representative”, until the young person takes control of their eHealth record or turns 18 . If the young person has capacity to consent to treatment and confidentiality in their own right, a parent cannot be their “Authorised Representative
” unless the child consents to this . When a young person turns 14, information from both the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) will cease to be included in their eHealth record . This information will only be made available again if the young person takes control of their eHealth record and consents to the inclusion of MBS and/or PBS data . If a young person is under 14 and would like to take control of their existing eHealth record or register for an eHealth record, they will need to prove to the System Operator that they can make decisions about their healthcare and can manage their eHealth record
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