Services Australia is ploughing through a backlog of Centrelink and Medicare claims. Photo: Julia Gomina.
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten is singing his department’s praises, with the latest statistics showing Services Australia is getting on top of its massive backlog of claims awaiting processing.
The Minister said hundreds of thousands of Australians were having their Centrelink and Medicare claims processed faster and wait times had been slashed across the board.
The government has also delivered on its commitment to reduce Services Australia’s claims on hand to normal levels by mid-year.
Services Australia slashed Medicare and Centrelink claims by 66 per cent as at 21 July, from 1.35 million in early February, to a regular number of about 460,000.
Mr Shorten said with the backlog cleared, from now on most claims would be processed within reasonable timeframes.
“This effort has delivered over 890,000 outstanding Centrelink and Medicare claims for Australians in need,” he said.
“In turning the corner to the new financial year, there is marked improvement in processing times on not only last year, but also when comparing performance back to 2018 in pre-COVID times.
“I know Australians are doing it tough and I’ve asked Services Australia to work hard to reduce its claim-processing and call wait times.
“There’s more to do, particularly in processing complex claims, but we’re making significant inroads across the board.”
According to the data, average claim-processing times have improved across most payments in the new financial year compared with last, including:
- 84 per cent lower for Paid Parental Leave claims (25 days down to four days)
- 84 per cent lower for Medicare Newborn enrolments (25 days down to four)
- 82 per cent lower for Medicare Online Account claims (11 days down to two)
- 73 per cent lower for JobSeeker claims (22 days down to six).
At 21 July, the agency was answering Centrelink calls around six minutes faster and Medicare customer calls nine minutes faster than in January.
It had cut congestion messaging on Centrelink lines by 58 per cent compared with January, and was serving a majority of customers (62 per cent) in 15 minutes at 318 service centres across Australia.
The Federal Government added 3000 permanent additional staff late last year to improve claim-processing times and access to services.
Mr Shorten said these new staff had now processed 1.4 million claims and answered 1.9 million calls.
He said the government’s commitment of $1.8 billion in the 2024-25 Budget to bolster service delivery, which included funding for 4030 staff in 2024-25 and 3530 staff in 2025-26, was starting to show results.
In April, Mr Shorten pointed out that the department had slashed the Centrelink and Medicare claims backlog by half a million in just 10 weeks.
That was the breakthrough he said Services Australia needed to get on top of the pile-up of claims since January.
A return to normal levels means the backlog sits at about 500,000, but Services Australia had reduced the mountain from 1.35 million to 850,000 in less than three months.
Jobseeker payments, the disability support pension, parent payments, the carer allowance and the age pension have been impacted by delays for far too long.
“We absolutely acknowledge the frustration of people waiting for payments, but for the first time in a long time we are headed in the right direction,” Mr Shorten said.
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