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

What happens now is that when you go to a provider and choose to have a service provided to you, they will allocate a number to you as part of their own record-keeping system. What they will do in future, when this is passed, is allocate you the unique health identifier number as part of the service. You can then choose not to use the health electronic record, but the service provider has still allocated that unique health number.