National Health Performance Authority, Healthy Communities: After-hours GP attendances, 2013–14

Collection and usage attributes

GP after-hours attendances are Medicare benefit-funded after-hours patient/doctor encounters, such as visits and consultations, for which the patient has not been referred by another doctor. They include urgent and non-urgent non-referred attendances.

Relevant non-referred Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items used in this indicator are:

For urgent attendances after hours, all items in MBS Group A11 (Urgent attendance after hours).

For non-urgent attendances after hours, all items in MBS Groups A22 (General practitioner attendances to which no other item apples) and A23 (other non-referred after hours attendances to which no other item applies).

Rates are directly age-standardised to the 2001 Australian population. In undertaking age standardisation of MBS data, the age of each person was determined from the last MBS service of any type, processed by the Department of Human Services in 2013–14.  All MBS services for each individual processed in 2013–14, were attributed this age. For MBS data, Primary Health Network (PHN) and SA3 were derived from the enrolment postcode for each person from the last MBS service of any type, processed by the Department of Human Services in 2013–14.  All MBS services for each individual processed in 2013–14 were attributed to this postcode. MBS postcode level data were allocated to PHN and SA3 regions using concordance files provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

SA3 level data for 2013-14 are not directly comparable to previous years due to a change in method for allocating post-office box (PO box) addresses to SA3 geographies. The change in method means that data for people with a PO box postcode recorded as their residential address may be included in SA3 totals.

Individual SA3 level data has been provided for the Northern Territory for 2013-14. Previously, this data was provided at the state level only.

Numerator data - Medicare (MBS) data provided by the Department of Health for the financial year of processing, 2013–14.

Denominator data – Estimated Resident Population at 30 June 2013 provided by ABS. 

Presented as average per person.

Before MBS data are published by NHPA all confidential data cells are suppressed.

The current definition of confidential data is as follows:

• For number of MBS services:
  • if number of services is less than 6 or
  • if number of services is equal to or greater than 6 but
    • one provider provides more than 85% of services or two providers provide more than 90% of services or
    • one patient receives more than 85% of services or two patients receive more than 90% of services.

• If data on number of services is confidential, corresponding data on other measures such as MBS benefit paid is also regarded as confidential.

(Numerator ÷ Denominator)

After-hours GP attendances 2013–14

After-hours GP attendances, age standardised 2013–14

For more information about age-standardisation, please see:

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Representational attributes

Indicator conceptual framework

Data source attributes

Accountability attributes

For MBS data Department of Health.

For ERP data Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Source and reference attributes

Relational attributes