Change of gender for Medicare enrolments 011-44110020

Services Australia recognises that gender is part of a person's social and personal identity and is progressively working to implement changes to align to the Australian Government Guidelines on the Recognition of Sex and Gender.

The agency is committed to making sure records accurately reflect each customer's gender and that updates are handled with care and efficiency.

Customers can have their gender recorded as:

• Male
• Female, or
• Non-Binary

Customer's aged 15 years or older can request a change to their gender at any time by:

• making an update in their Medicare Online Account
• phone
• visiting a service centre, or
• mail

Supporting documents or evidence is not required to make this change. However, the customer must pass authentication processes to verify their identity.

See the Process page for how to amend a customer's gender in their CDMS record.

A parent and/or guardian who is currently associated with or is the Group contact on the Medicare card of a child under the age of 15, can request an update to their gender.

Requests to change the gender of children under the age of 15 must be escalated for further assessment. This does not include cases where a processing error in the enrolment is identified. If the error can be verified, Service Officers can correct the record.

See Table 2 on the Process page for more details.

If a parent or guardian wishes to enrol their newborn as intersex or non-binary, see Newborn child enrolments in Medicare.

Service Officers who update customer records to reflect a gender change must make sure the gender identity Sensitive Information Indicator is applied.

When Service Officers see a gender identity Sensitive Information Indicator on a record, they should be aware:

• a person's sex and gender may not be the same
• of the need to address the customer by their appropriate name and title. As these actions can cause distress and offence to customers, Service Officers must avoid:
• misgendering (using incorrect personal pronouns), or
• 'deadnaming' (using previous names)
• customers may use a diverse range of pronouns. Pronouns may be recorded in the Sensitive Information Indicator comments. Service Officers should be mindful to use appropriate pronouns where the customer has made them known

Service Officers should not make judgements based on recorded names or a customer's tone of voice, and instead progress with the authentication of the customer as per Authenticating a Medicare customer.