Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I will go back to the two subsets. If you do not have a number then the provider will have to provide some other way to provide the service by providing their own number, a new number or some other number but not a health identifier number, which is separate from the record—which, I am advised, is what happens now. What that would then create is a subset of unique health identifiers, individuals without numbers and then individuals who have accessed health systems with a plethora of numbers. You would then not have a unique health identifier system in place. In terms of having the record, you would then, if you chose, not have an electronic health record. You have to separate the number from the record.