Percentage of Patients With Out-Of-Pocket Costs for Diagnostic Imaging Services

Identifying Attributes

Care Settings
Primary Care
Country
Australia
Publishing Organisation
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW): Healthy community indicators
Type of Quality Indicator
Outcome
IOM Quality Dimension
Equity
Domain
Wait and System Planning / Access

Defining Attributes

Definition

Percentage of patients with out-of-pocket costs for diagnostic imaging services. A claim is classified as a diagnostic imaging service if the item is in the Broad Type of Service group: Diagnostic Imaging (G/600) and the service is not conducted in a hospital to an admitted patient. Diagnostic imaging services are Medicare-subsidised diagnostic imaging procedures such as x-rays, computerised tomography scans, ultrasound scans, magnetic resonance imaging scans and nuclear medicine scans.

Numerator

Number of patients whose annual out-of-pocket cost (fee charged minus benefit paid) for all eligible claims for the relevant service type processed between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2017 was greater than zero.

Denominator

Number of patients who had at least one eligible claim for the relevant service type processed between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2017.

Exclusions

Patients were excluded if the sum of eligible services in the year was less than one, or if their annual out-of-pocket expenditure on those eligible services was less than zero.

Use of Risk Adjustment
No
Risk Adjustments

None

Stratifications

By Primary Health Network (PHN) and Statistical Areas Level 3 (SA3s).

Collection and Reporting Attributes

Type of Data Collection
Administrative data
Data Collection Methods

Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS)

Frequency of Data Collection
Frequency of Data Collection in Days
Reporting Methods
Reporting Frequency
Reporting Frequency in Days
Indicator Has Recommended Targets
No

Source and Reference Attributes

Link to Measurement Tools
Quality Indicator Confirmed to be Part of a Program Used to Monitor Quality and Safety of Care Among Older People at a Population-Level between 2012-2022
Yes
Assessed by the Australian Consortium for Aged Care Collaborators as Generally Containing Good Properties (Importance and Scientific Acceptability)
No
Australian Consortium for Aged Care Endorsed
No
Identified by PHARMA-Care Project
No
Upload Date
02 December 2025