Specialist Register Update

23 Jul 2010

A national register is published for each of the 10 health professions regulated by the national scheme. You can immediately check your registration status online using the Registers of Practitioners.

Once you have found your name, or the name of the practitioner you are searching for, click on the practitioner name for more information.

Remember, all health practitioners will have a new registration number under the national scheme. Old registration numbers will not work when searching the national register.

Specialist Register for Medicine

The Medical Board of Australia (MBA) has agreed that when a medical practitioner was, at 30 June 2010 recognised as a specialist by the relevant college, they will be deemed to have had specialist registration in the relevant specialty under the transition provisions of the National Law. They will not have to make a fresh application to have their name placed on the Specialist Register.

The on-line specialist register for medicine is currently incomplete. Finalising it involves a detailed process of reconciling and verifying data between AHPRA, the specialist medical colleges and Medicare. The Medical Board of Australia decided not to ask every individual practitioner to apply for specialist registration in the national scheme and instead opted to rely on data from existing sources. Specialist registers were not previously in place in all states, so this task is more complex for registrants in some states than others.

During the transition to a complete specialist register, Medicare continues to pay specialist rebates for medical practitioners recognised in its system as specialists and the VR GP item numbers for RACGP fellows and VR GPs.

We have published a form (Form for transition to medical specialist registration under the National Law - FTMS-03) on the MBA website to enable medical registrants to advise if they have specialist registration. The form will include an authority for AHPRA to seek confirmation from the relevant specialist college, so the data verification process can proceed.

Practitioners who have previously advised AHPRA of their eligibility for specialist registration do not need to complete this form. Feedback already provided to AHPRA is being reviewed and the national register updated progressively. All practitioners can check their registration details online using the Registers of Practitioners.

AHPRA is working with the specialist colleges and Medicare to resolve these issues, with additional data verification built into the registration renewal process in September.