Mr Brendan O'Connor asked the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing, upon notice, on 11 February 2003:

(1) What was the number of (a) general practitioners and (b) specialists in the electoral division of Burke in (i) 1995 and (ii) 2002.

(2) What was the ratio per 1000 of population of (a) general practitioners and (b) specialists, in the electoral division of Burke in the years (i) 1995 and (ii) 2002.

(3) What is the number and percentage of (a) general practitioners and (b) specialists that bulk billed in (i) 1995 and (ii) 2002.

Mr Andrews (Minister for Ageing) —The Minister for Health and Ageing has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:

(1) The following table shows the number of (a) general practitioners and (b) specialists, in the electoral division of Burke in (i) 1995 and (ii) 2002:

(2) The following table shows the ratio per 1,000 of population of (a) general practitioners and (b) specialists, in the electoral division of Burke in the years (i) 1995 and (ii) 2002:

(3) The following table shows the number and percentage of (a) general practitioners and (b) specialists, in the electoral division of Burke, that bulk billed in (i) 1995 and (ii) 2002:

The statistics relate to services rendered on a `fee-for-service' basis for which Medicare benefits were paid in the periods in question (based on date of processing). Excluded are details of services to public patients in hospital, to Department of Veterans' Affairs patients and some compensation cases.

The provider counts above were based on major practice postcode in the December quarter of the respective years. Where postcodes overlapped Federal electoral division boundaries, statistics were mapped to electorate using data from the Census of Population and Housing showing the proportion of the population of each postcode in each electoral division.

In general terms, any practitioner with more than 50 per cent of Medicare Schedule fee income from non-referred attendances, based on claims processed in the December quarter of the respective years, was regarded as a general practitioner. All other practitioners, including optometrists, were regarded as specialists.

To the extent that some providers have more than one active provider number, there will be some multiple counting of providers.