Change of gender for Medicare enrolments 011-44110020

Service Officers must only authenticate the customer where evidence has been provided and found in PaNDA.

If the customer has not provided evidence, tell them to lodge their documents, and end the call. See Evidence of gender on the Background page.

Was authentication successful? See Authenticating a Medicare customer.

• Yes, go to Step 2
• No, the customer is unauthenticated and must:
• call back with more information, or
• attend a service centre with an approved photographic identity document. Procedure ends here

To establish or update the gender on their record a customer must provide one form of evidence. See Evidence of gender on the Background page.

Has evidence been received to amend a customer's gender?

• Yes, go to Step 3
• No, advise the customer of the evidence requirements to update gender. Procedure ends here

On the CDMS Home page, select Amend Consumer Details link to open the Amendment Search screen.

Conduct an ID number or name search to identify the customer:

Select Personal to open the Amend Personal Details screen.

In Consumers, select the radio button to select the record to amend.

If the evidence provided is a document that can be verified in DVS, see Identity verification for Medicare enrolments and re-enrolments in the Medicare Document Verification Service (DVS) Portal.

In Personal Details:

• Gender field: subject to evidence received, update the gender details
• Gender Change Reason field: select the reason for the change

Non-binary customers

Until there is an update to ICT systems to include a value for non-binary (X), Service Officers must record the person's preferred gender (male or female) in the Gender field.

Where a customer has requested a gender change, Service Officers must add a Sensitive Information Indicator to their record.

On the Sensitive Information tab:

• Category: Identity
• Indicator: Gender Identity
• Details: Customer has changed their gender information
• Notification channel: Record how the information was received
• Comment: Record pronouns and preferred name. Include if the customer still uses the legal name on their record. This will help Service Officers recognise that the customer has updated their gender identity and kept their legal name:
• For example:
  Still uses name John Citizen. They/them
  Preferred name Sam Citizen. She/her
• Text added to this field:
  is limited to 80 characters
  appears in the Sensitive Information pop up table
  can be released under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request
• End Date and End Date Reason are optional fields and can be left blank

Make any other updates in the remaining fields in CDMS, as required. For example, their title.

If the customer requires a change of name, see Change legal name on Medicare record.

Scroll down and select Validate [Alt+V] to open.

When an information message shows to confirm if the amendments were acceptable or not, select OK. If not acceptable, change the amendments as required.

Scroll down and select Validate [Alt+V].

The Confirm Amended Personal details screen will show the updated details.

Are the details on the screen correct?

• Yes, select Update. Updated details will show on the Amend Personal Details screen
• No, select Change to change details, go to Step 5

Record a comment in the Personal tab to say gender has been changed in CDMS and the type of documents the customer supplied to support the change.

For non-binary customers, Service Officers must include the comment 'customer identifies as gender X'.