July Central Update: AOB and Clinical Enhancements
July 13, 2026
The July 2026 central data release is now available.
Assignment of Benefits (AOB): New clinical items and letter templates
You will be aware of the updated changes to the Bulk Billing assignment of benefits that commenced on 1 July 2026. The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing have recently made further changes to AoB, and have introduced a transitional year until 30 June 2027.
We are working to align with the policy changes and updates as we become aware of them. The introduction of these clinical items and letter templates for a complete workflow is to support your health service with introducing Pre Assignment and Enduring Assignment of Benefits. Both record the required detail to complete the agreement and the “save & write letter template” step produces the required documentation that must be stored for two (2) years, either electronically or on paper.
(1) AOB Pre Assignment: Use this clinical item and ‘AOB_pre_Asisgnment_Agreement’ letter template to collect the required data and produce the pre-assignment agreement.
(2) AOB Enduring: Use this clinical item and ‘AOB EnduringACCHO_AMS Agreement’ letter template to collect the required data and produce the enduring agreement.
There are now three options for Assignment of Benefits: Pre Assignment, Post Assignment and Enduring. Post Assignment AOB changes are in Version 23.3, so please book your upgrade if you have not already done so.
For your AOB changes, please work with your Communicare Administrator and MBS team to develop a workflow that works for your health service.
For more information on AOB
- Update to Assignment of Medicare Benefit requirements – Bulk billing | Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
- Assignment of Medicare Benefits for Bulk Billing – Frequently Ased Questions | Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
- Communicare Webinar Recording, 25 June 2026
- Communicare AOB Workflow Information document [Communicare Administrators and Medicare Officers, this document should assist with reviewing available AOB workflows]
Other updates
This release also includes a number of updates to clinical items, qualifiers, reports, and templates including:
Updated clinical items:
- ICPC2 update now includes the new stages for rheumatic heart disease conditions.
- RHD & ARF data set checkup and review clinical items have been updated to include the correct links to the new 2025 Australian guideline for the prevention, diagnosis and management of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease (Edition 3.3).
- New immunisation Capvaxive.
- Additional keywords for FLUMIST immunisation.
- Updated MyMedicare Registration Form.
- Update to CARPA CVD risk clinical item algorithm to include patients 18 years and over (previously 20 years).
- Update to ear health clinical items description for Tympanometry 1000Hz to: “only for children under six (6) months”. Children 6 months and older should have regular Tympanometry.
- New Popup Alert Notes report for patients.
GRT Update
A reminder that the latest GRT (V1.8.1.2) and Communicare NKPI reports were available for download from 4 June 2026.
As noted previously, PI14 now includes the latest flu vaccinations and the export from the GRT – OSRPatientFacts.csv is available to generate a spreadsheet of patients included in OSR reports. This inclusion is designed to help you easily identify which patients are counted into which categories. This file is generated along with the other files when the GRT is run. It can be accessed by clicking “Preview KPIs in directory” from within the GRT.
The full list of Central release changes and descriptions are available in the Knowledge Centre: Central Data changes.
Adding this update
To apply this update and/or review the available data, go to: File > Reference Tables > Update Clinical Data.
You can run your Communicare Data Updater for:
- Central Data
- Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) Rules
- Templates and Reports
- Government Reporting Tool (GRT)
If you are unfamiliar with the Data Updater Tool click here for more information.
For help and support, please submit a ticket to the Telstra Health Support Portal.