Biographics - Personal

Record personal patient information on the Personal tab. All patient records require at least one name and one home address. For most health services, all other data is optional. However, for some large health services you may be required to provide more information.

Table 1. Biographics information - Personal tab
Field Description
Sex

Ensure you set a patient's sex if you want to generate sex-based recalls automatically.

Changing a patient's sex does not affect existing recalls or create new recalls. If new recalls appropriate to the new sex are required, either delete the patient and add the person as a new patient or manually adjust the recalls already generated.

Choose from the following options:

  • Female - sex at birth was recorded as Female. Coded as 'F' or '2'.
  • Male - sex at birth was recorded as Male. Coded as 'M' or '1'.
  • Indeterminate - sex at birth was recorded as Indeterminate. Coded as 'D' or '3'.
  • Intersex - sex at birth was recorded as Intersex. Coded as 'I' or '3'.
  • Not Stated - sex at birth was recorded as Not Stated. Coded as 'N' or '9'.
  • Unknown/Inadequately described - sex at birth is currently unknown or inadequately described. Coded as 'U' or '9'.

If sex is not set, it can be added by anyone with access to biographics.
Date of Birth

Ensure you provide an exact or approximate date of birth if you want to generate age-based recalls automatically. If you don't know the exact date of birth, enter an estimate and set Estimated.

Changing a patient's date of birth does not affect existing recalls or create new recalls. If new recalls appropriate to the new date of birth are required, either delete the patient and add the person as a new patient or manually adjust the recalls already generated.

If the date of birth is not set, it can be added by anyone with access to biographics.
Names - Forenames and Family Name

(Required) Provide at least one family name for a patient. You can enter multiple names for a patient, but they must have only one preferred name that is used to verify Medicare and their IHI number.

The patient's preferred name is used throughout Communicare, except in the following areas where the Medicare name is used instead:

  • Prescriptions
  • Pathology and Radiology requests
  • Billing documents

If the given names are not set, they can be added by anyone with access to biographics.
Indigenous Status Leave blank or select one of the following options:
  • Aboriginal but not Torres Strait Islander - patient is of Aboriginal but not Torres Strait Islander origin. Coded as 'T' or '1'.
  • Torres Strait Islander but not Aboriginal - patient is of Torres Strait Islander but not Aboriginal origin. Coded as 'T' or '2'.
  • Both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander - patient is of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin. Coded as 'T' or '3'.
  • Neither Aboriginal nor Torres Strait Islander - patient is of neither Aboriginal nor Torres Strait Islander origin. Coded as 'F' or '4'.
  • Not applicable - a non-patient of some description, for example, Unidentified.
  • Not stated/inadequately described - patient has declined to state their Aboriginality or the response is inadequately described. Coded as '9'.
Addresses (Required) Provide at least a home address for a patient.
Contact details Provide phone numbers and an email address where available.
Identification numbers
  • Patient ID - internal identifier for a person automatically generated by Communicare
  • IHI Number - current Individual Healthcare Identifier assigned to the patient. The text colour is dependent on the validation status.
  • MRN - an extra search term you can enter to help you find the patient
  • MeHR - for patients in the Northern Territory, the MeHR identifier, validated against the MeHR repository when the biographics are saved
Medicare

Enter the patient's Medicare details if known.

Medicare details are colour-coded. Out-of-date or incomplete Medicare information is highlighted in yellow.

If electronic claiming is enabled for your service, click Check Card Online to validate Medicare details. Hover the mouse over the button to see when the details were last validated.
CentreLink If the patient holds a CentreLink card, enter the CentreLink number and select the card expiry and type of card from the following options:
  • HCC - Health Care Card
  • No card - leave the other CentreLink fields blank
  • Pension
  • Seniors - Commonwealth Seniors card
DVA If the patient holds a DVA card, enter the DVA file number found below their name (this is different to the card number). Also select the card expiry and the type of card from the following options:
  • Blue
  • Gold
  • Green
  • No card
  • Orange
  • Unknown File no.
  • White
PBS Safety Net

If a PBS Safety Net card has been provided to the patient by a pharmacist, enter both the number and expiry date.

Out-of-date or incomplete Safety Net information is highlighted in yellow.