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Administrative
Add and manage patients, manage appointments and manage transport.
Patients
Communicare uses the term Patient to refer to the clients of a health service.
Biographics
Biographics
Personal information about a patient is recorded in patient records in Communicare. Use the Patient Biographics window to add, edit and review patients' personal information.
Biographics - Registration
Record CTG, PIP registrations and view MyMedicare information for the patient on the Registration tab.

Administrative
Add and manage patients, manage appointments and manage transport.
- Patients
  Communicare uses the term Patient to refer to the clients of a health service.
  - Biographics
    - Biographics
      Personal information about a patient is recorded in patient records in Communicare. Use the Patient Biographics window to add, edit and review patients' personal information.
      - 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.
      - Biographics - Social data
        Record demographic and next-of-kin information on the Social tab. Depending on the configuration for your health service, some of these fields may be compulsory.
      - Biographics - Administration
        Record administrative information about the patient on the Administration tab.
      - Biographics - Registration
        Record CTG, PIP registrations and view MyMedicare information for the patient on the Registration tab.
      - Biographics - Identifiers
        Identifiers from external systems or clinics are recorded on the Identifiers tab. Edit these identifiers if required.
      - Biographics - Additional
        If the Additional tab has been enabled for your site, use it to record additional information about the patient.
    - Changing Biographics
      You can update a patient's existing data, including their Medicare details, and add new patient names and patient addresses to a patient record.
    - Reviewing Biographics
      Review patients' biographic data regularly and particularly after patient records have been merged.
    - Printing Blank Biographics Forms
    - Medicare details
      Communicare performs validations to check that a patient's Medicare details are correct.
  - Information Sharing Consent
    Health Services have access to any information they have recorded internally. If you have a single database in your organisation used by multiple health services, you can also share information recorded by other health services with the clients' consent.
  - Patient Search
    Use the patient search to select and work with the patient's record, or create a new record.
  - Browse For Duplicate Patient Records
    Use Browse For Duplicate Records to locate all patient records that could be duplicates, based on name, sex and date of birth.
  - Adding a New Patient
    When a patient first makes contact with your encounter place, and before you provide a service to that patient, add a patient record.
  - Patient Status
    Use Current status to indicate a person's primary relationship to your health service.
  - Group Memberships
    Use the Group Membership window to review the dates on which a patient joined or exited a group.
  - Deleting a Patient
    You can delete fictitious patients from Communicare.
  - Duplicate patient checks
    When a patient is added to Communicare, a series of checks are done in an attempt to identify and prevent duplicate entries.
  - Recording the death of a patient
    In Communicare, record when a patient dies. Deceased patients are excluded from many reports but will continue to be included if not marked as deceased.
  - Patient merge
    When a patient has been recorded twice in Communicare, use patient merge to combine the two records.
  - Patient alert
    If an alert is added to a patient's biographic information, a pop-up alert is displayed when the patient's record is opened.
  - Background Work window
    The background work window is displayed when Communicare is busy and you must wait for the described background process to complete before proceeding with other actions.
  - Registering patients with MHR
    If the My Health Record Assisted Registration module is enabled in System Rights and you belong to a user group with the My Health Record Assisted Registration system right, you can register patients with My Health Record.
- Appointments
  Use Communicare appointments to book future appointments and record services provided without an appointment, for example, walk-in patients.
- Transport
  Communicare offers two ways of managing transport services.

Biographics - Registration

Record CTG, PIP registrations and view MyMedicare information for the patient on the Registration tab.

Table 1. Biographics information - Registration tab
Field		Description
Registered for CTG Co-payment Relief		Set if a patient is Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and is registered for Closing the Gap co-payment relief. If set, prescriptions can be marked for CTG co-payments for this patient.
	Date Registered for CTG	Select the date on which the patient registered for Closing the Gap co-payment relief.
Registered for PIP		Set if your health service is a patient's usual care provider, the patient is Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, is 15 and over, and you have registered them with Practice Incentives Program Indigenous Health Incentive. Under the PIP IHI, your health service receives incentive payments for patient registration and preparation and review of some care plans. For more information, see https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/apply-for-practice-incentives-program
	Date Registered for PIP	Select the date on which the patient was registered for PIP IHI.
MyMedicare¹	Registered at this location	If the patient is registered for MyMedicare at your health service today, displays `Yes` or `No` if they are not. If the registration is in progress, displays `Pending`.
	Eligible for MyMedicare	If the patient is not registered for MyMedicare at your health service today, displays `Yes` if the patient is eligible to be registered or `No` if they are not.
	Preferred provider	If the patient is registered for MyMedicare at your health service today, displays the name of the patient's preferred provider. If the provider is not part of your health service, displays `Provider <number> not found`.
	Participation in MyMedicare schemes	If the patient has completed MyMedicare registration and is registered for MyMedicare at your health service today, displays the schemes in which they are a participant, for example, `FHU`, `GPACI`.

¹ A patient's MyMedicare status is checked automatically when you open their clinical record or biographics.

20 May 2026