Someone else’s Medicare

Acting for someone else

When you act for someone it means you manage their Medicare affairs for them. There must be a good reason why they can’t do this. For instance, they may not be able to make decisions because of illness or disability.

There are 3 reasons why you can act for someone:

• you have their power of attorney
• you’re their legal guardian or administrator
• you need to act for them because they can’t act for themselves.

If you’re acting for someone, you may be able to:

• ask us questions on their behalf
• make decisions about Medicare for them
• update their contact and bank details
• make Medicare claims for them.

You can’t manage their Medicare affairs with us online.

If you have a Power of Attorney (POA)

You just need to register it with us. You can either:

• take the original power of attorney document to a service centre
• email or post a certified copy of this document to us.

You’ll need to give us the person’s Medicare card number and your Identification.

This can be either your:

• Australian Birth Certificate
• Australian Citizenship Certificate
• Australian Drivers licence
• valid Australian passport
• Foreign passport with a current Australian visa
• valid ImmiCard.

If a court has made you the person’s guardian or administrator

You need to register it with us. You can either:

• take the original or certified copy of the court order to a service centre
• email or post a certified copy of this document to us.

You’ll need to give us the person’s Medicare card number and your Identification.

This can be either your:

• Australian Birth Certificate
• Australian Citizenship Certificate
• Australian Drivers licence
• valid Australian passport
• Foreign passport with a current Australian visa
• ImmiCard.

Applying to act for someone else

You need to apply to us if you want to act for someone and either:

• you don’t have their power of attorney
• you’re not their legal guardian or administrator.

To act for someone they must be unable to manage their own affairs.

You must:

• be 18 or older
• be a close friend or relative of the person
• not have a paid job as their carer
• have evidence they can’t act for themselves, such as a medical certificate.

To apply, follow these steps.

1. Fill in the authorisation to act on a person’s behalf form.
2. Get the documents you need to back up your application. The required supporting documents are listed on the form.
3. Submit your form and supporting documents to us. The ways you can do this are on the form.