Overseas immunisations and processing history forms in the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) 011-10020000

Service Officers must promote the recording or updating of immunisation information through the AIR site or Practice Management Software (PMS), where available.

Recognised vaccination providers can notify the AIR of immunisations given overseas or by other vaccination providers by recording an immunisation history using:

• the AIR site
• PMS, where available
• an Australian Immunisation Register immunisation history form (IM013)

Providers do not receive payments for recording an immunisation history given by another vaccination provider.

Vaccination schedules in other countries do not always match Australian schedules. This means an Australian provider may not be able to identify the vaccine brand given to a person overseas. This can result in conflicting records between the vaccinations history recorded given overseas and those recorded given in Australia.

The Resources page contains a link to Overseas immunisations (AIRM05) eLearning. This explains how vaccination providers record overseas immunisation information on the AIR site.

Where vaccines given overseas have an unknown or unrecognised brand name in Australia, Service Officers must record the vaccination using the generic antigen codes. Where possible, use a generic combination vaccine code. For example, record a generic MMR vaccine rather than separate generic measles, mumps and rubella.

The Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) - immunisation history form (IM013) is available on the Services Australia website. It is used when there is no access to the AIR site or vaccination software.

The IM013 is used to update an individual’s immunisation history for vaccines given by other vaccination providers. It provides the following customer details:

• Medicare card and reference number
• Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI) number
• name, address, gender, and date of birth
• Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander status
• historical vaccination information
• dates of immunisation
• planned catch up schedule option
• provider details

The Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) - immunisation history form (IM013) is processed using manual encounters in mainframe. A claim header is needed to record the immunisation history.

Claim headers include the following sections:

• provider details
• claim details
• provider declaration

As mainframe has not been updated since manual encounter vouchers ended, claim headers need to be created before processing an IM013 form.

Information from the IM013 form is used to create the claim header. When encounters are submitted electronically, the system automatically generates a claim header.

One of the following generic provider numbers are used on claim headers when processing an IM013 form:

• A56801A for immunisations given in Australia
• A92009H for immunisations given overseas

Providers do not receive an information payment for submitting an IM013 form.

A claim header is not needed when the IM013 form only has a catch up schedule and no vaccines listed.

The Record or amend catch up schedules in the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) page contains information about recording and updating catch-up schedules

Vaccination providers can notify the AIR of a catch up schedule using:

• the AIR site
• Practice Management Software (PMS), where available
• an Australian Immunisation Register immunisation history form (IM013)
• an Australian Immunisation Register immunisation encounter (IM018)

Note: both the IM013 and IM018 forms allow vaccination providers to indicate a customer is on a catch-up schedule for overdue vaccines

Only one catch-up schedule can be recorded for a customer and valid for 6 months.

Recording a catch up schedule on the AIR may result in Child Care Subsidy (CCS) and Family Tax Benefit (FTB) entitlements, for a customer:

• being considered up-to-date
• meeting immunisation requirements during the catch up period

Immunisation status remains not up to date until all required vaccinations are recorded on the AIR. Service Officers can view:

• CCS and FTB status in the AIR Service Officer Portal under Status Summary
• YIIS - Status and Due Overdue Details screen in mainframe

Service Officers must take care when keying the catch-up schedule date. An incorrect date can trigger reminder letters and impact family assistance.

If the provider declaration, including the date, is not completed, the form must be returned as incomplete.

The Change requests in the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) page contains information about updating AIR records.