Australian Medicare is HUGE facility given to the citizens and permanent residents of the country. It gives them a health insurance and saves them from the exorbitant hospital and healthcare bills, as under the system these are highly subsidized by the government. No wonder, the Australian Medicare is a cherished facility and one of the USPs of the Australia Immigration, on a permanent basis.
But What Exactly is Medicare?
Well, the well-known Australian Medicare is the nation’s publicly supported universal healthcare programme. If you have the necessary qualifications, you may access a chain of medical services absolutely free, and this comprises care as a patient in a government run hospital or lower fee prescriptions.
Who is Entitled?
To get Medicare it is mandatory that you
Live in the country and:
– Have either the citizenship of Australia or New Zealand,
– Be a permanent resident (comprising the returning residents),
– Be a candidate for a permanent visa who possesses the right to do a job in the country or who has a parent, significant other or kid who has either the citizenship or permanent residency of Oz or the citizenship of the neighbouring New Zealand,
– Be covered by a Ministerial order,
– Be a resident of some specific dependency islands of Oz.
You may also obtain a Medicare Card in case you make a trip to the country from a Reciprocal Care Agreement country. At present, Canberra has treaties with 11 nations of the world, comprising Belgium, the UK, and Italy.
How to Register?
You require filling a petition; you may download this on either the website run by the Department of Human Services (DHS) or the one located in in a Medicare service centre.
Once you successfully complete the form, you require taking the same to a Medicare service centre with the compulsory certificates. Those are different in case you are a citizen, a permanent resident, on a visa.
How to Make a Claim?
When you present a petition for Medicare, you may connect your bank account. The maximum number of the claims will be processed at the centre of the doctor, and you’ll obtain the money in your account some days after that. In case you cannot do it right there, you may do the same via mail, online or via the Express plus Medicare mobile app.
As per a DHS spokesperson, in case one downloads the Medicare smartphone app, he may, in fact, present a claim, via his smartphone. The good thing about the using the app is that one may take a snap of any receipts that he needs to share, and upload those, via the smartphone app, he added.
What about New Migrants?
The Medicare does not cover numerous individuals, such as the ones on the Working-holiday or Student Visas.
And so it is required that such people obtain a private health insurance, to take care of their medical and hospital bills, a concerned person reportedly stated. He explained that Medicare is basically an arrangement for the nation’s Citizens and Permanent Residents.
And for those who are refuge hunters and who do not have the eligibility for Medicare, some organizations are there in every state which may assist them take care of their medical bills, he added.
