National Healthcare Agreement: PI 29: Private sector mental health services, 2011 QS
Data Quality Statement Attributes
Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Quality Statement |
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METEOR identifier: | 448157 |
Registration status: | Health, Superseded 04/12/2012 |
Data quality | |
Data quality statement summary: |
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Institutional environment: | The MBS claims data are an administrative by-product of Medicare Australia’s administration of the Medicare fee-for-service payment systems. Medicare Australia collects the MBS data under the Medicare Australia Act 1973. These data are then regularly provided to DoHA. The MBS claims data are an administrative by-product of Medicare Australia administering the Medicare fee-for-service payment systems. The AIHW prepared and calculated the indicator based on data supplied by other data providers. The AIHW drafted the initial data quality statement. The statement was finalised by AIHW following input from DoHA. The AIHW did not have the relevant datasets required to independently verify the data tables for this indicator. The AIHW is an independent statutory authority within the Health and Ageing portfolio, which is accountable to the Parliament of Australia through the Minister. For further information see the AIHW website. |
Timeliness: | The indicator relates to all claims processed in the 2009-10 financial year. |
Accessibility: | Medicare claims statistics are available at: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/Medicare+S tatistics-1 https://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/statistics/mbs_item.shtml Disaggregation by SEIFA is not publicly available elsewhere. The AIHW produces the annual series Mental health services in Australia (available in hard copy or electronically on the AIHW website.) |
Interpretability: | Information is available for MBS Claims data from: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/mbsonline/publishing.nsf/content/medica re-benefits-schedule-mbs-1 |
Relevance: | The measure relates to mental health-specific Medicare services for which claims data are available. Analyses by State/Territory, remoteness and SEIFA are based on postcode of residence of the client as recorded by Medicare Australia at the date of last service received in the reference period. As clients may receive services in locations other than where they live, these data do not necessarily reflect the location in which services were received. Further, all MBS services received by clients who moved residences during the reference period are allocated to the postcode of their address at the date the last service was received. This measure does not include claims that are reimbursed through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA). For 2009-10, it is estimated that DVA services comprised less than 2 per cent of Australian Government (MBS and DVA-reimbursed) private mental health services. The DVA, AIHW and DOHA have been working collaboratively to achieve alignment of DVA and MBS data and it is anticipated that DVA data will be included in this PI for the next reporting cycle. |
Accuracy: | As with any administrative system a small degree of error may be present in the data captured. Medicare claims data used for statistical purposes are based on enrolment postcode of the patient. This postcode may not reflect the current postcode of the patient if an address change has not been notified to Medicare Australia. Financial-year data are based on the date on which a Medicare claim was processed by Medicare Australia, not when the service was rendered. The use of data based on when the claim was processed rather than when the service was rendered produces little difference in the total number of persons included in the numerator for the reference period. The MBS items used to construct this indicator include services that may be rendered in a hospital setting. Medicare data presented by Indigenous status have been adjusted for under-identification in the Medicare Australia Voluntary Indigenous Identifier (VII) database. Indigenous rates are therefore modelled and should be interpreted with caution. These statistics are not derived from the total Australian Indigenous population, but from those Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have voluntarily identified as Indigenous to Medicare Australia. The statistics have been adjusted to reflect demographic characteristics of the overall Indigenous population, but this adjustment may not address all the differences in the service use patterns of the enrolled population relative to the total Indigenous population. The level of VII enrolment (50 per cent nationally as at August 2010) varies across age-sex-remoteness-State/Territory sub-groups and over time which means that the extent of adjustment required varies across jurisdictions and over time. The methodology for this adjustment was developed and verified by the AIHW and the Department of Health and Ageing for assessment of MBS and PBS service use and expenditure for Indigenous Australians. For an explanation of the methodology, see |
Coherence: | The data used in this indicator are routinely published in Mental health services in Australia. However, in that publication, rates may be calculated using different ERPs rather than June 2009 ERPs that are used for this indicator. Consequently, there may be some differences in the calculated rates. All psychologist items have been reported under the general heading of Psychologist services in Mental health services in Australia whereas this indicator reports Clinical psychologists separately and all other psychologist items are reported as Other allied health. As of 1 January 2010, a new item (2702) has been introduced for patients of GPs who have not undertaken mental health skills training. Changes have been made to the existing item 2710 to allow patients of GPs who have undertaken mental health skills training to access a higher rebate. Both of these items relate to the preparation of a GP mental health treatment plan. Caution should be taken when interpreting Indigenous rates over time. All other data can be meaningfully compared across reference periods. |
Relational attributes | |
Related metadata references: | Supersedes National Healthcare Agreement: P29-Private sector mental health services, 2010 QS Health, Superseded 08/06/2011 Has been superseded by National Healthcare Agreement: PI 29-Private sector mental health services, 2012 QS Health, Retired 14/01/2015 |
Indicators linked to this Data Quality statement: | National Healthcare Agreement: PI 29-Private sector mental health services, 2011 Health, Superseded 30/10/2011 |