Australian Immunisation Register for health professionals

The Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) is a national register that records vaccines given to people of all ages in Australia.

Medical practitioners, midwives and nurse practitioners with a Medicare provider number are automatically recognised as vaccination providers and are authorised to record or get immunisation data from the AIR. Other eligible health professionals and organisations can apply to become a recognised vaccination provider and access AIR using HPOS.

Recognised vaccination providers should record their patient’s immunisation details on the AIR. A recognised vaccination provider in Australia can also record vaccines given overseas if the relevant documents are translated into English.

The AIR can only accept immunisation information from recognised vaccination providers in Australia. This means the AIR cannot accept any information from parents.

Recording information on the AIR is important. The AIR is used to:

• determine a person’s immunisation status, regardless of who immunised them
• determine a person’s eligibility for some family assistance payments
• provide an Immunisation History Statement so people can prove their immunisation status for child care, school, employment or travel purposes
• monitor immunisation coverage levels and service delivery, which can help to identify regions at risk during disease outbreaks
• measure vaccination coverage at a local, state and national level

There are risks with revaccinating against certain diseases and people can only get some vaccines once. For your patient’s safety it’s important all immunisation information is recorded on the AIR.

The AIR lets recognised vaccination providers:

• record patient immunisation information
• update or correct some data already sent to the AIR
• request reports to help identify any patients due or overdue for vaccination
• report immunisation medical exemptions and natural immunities online (certain vaccination providers only)
• get information payments for the provision of certain vaccinations (eligible providers only)

Eligible vaccination providers can get an information payment for:

• completing a National Immunisation Program Schedule for a child under 7 years of age and recording it on the AIR
• following up and vaccinating a child under 7 years of age who’s more than 2 months overdue for their childhood vaccinations under the National Immunisation Program Schedule and recording it on the AIR

The information payments are:

• up to $6 per completed immunisation schedule for children under 7 years of age
• $6 per completed catch-up schedule for children under 7 years of age, and
• paid by Electronic Funds Transfer on the second last Tuesday of each month

To get a payment you need to:

• provide your bank account details when you register as a vaccination provider with the AIR, or
• complete an Australian Immunisation Register Bank Account Details for Vaccination Providers form

To update your bank account details on the AIR, you can:

• use Health Professional Online Services (HPOS), or
• complete and send us the Australian Immunisation Register Bank Account Details for Vaccination Providers form

You’ll get an immunisation payment statement summary each month. You can access the statement on the AIR site or have it posted to you. You can check or change your preferences on the AIR site.

Immunisation details recorded on the AIR during the last month will be included in the Immunisation Notifications Reconciliation report. This report is on the AIR site on the second last Tuesday of each month.

Identifying overdue children

You can get a number of reports from the AIR site to help you identify children overdue for immunisation, including:

• AIR010A - AIR Due/Overdue Practice Report
• AIR011A - Due/Overdue report by locality
• AIR011B - Due/overdue report by vaccination provider

To get these reports go to accessing the AIR using HPOS.

The National Immunisation Program (NIP) Schedule specifies the ages people in Australia should get certain vaccines. Read more about the National Immunisation Program Schedule on the Department of Health website.

State and territory health departments provide specific jurisdictional information about immunisation. For more information go to:

• ACT Department of Health
• NSW Ministry of Health
• NT Department of Health
• QLD Department of Health
• SA Department of Health
• TAS Department of Health and Human Services
• VIC Department of Health and Human Services
• WA Department of Health

Only certain doctors can provide immunisation medical exemptions.

Read more about immunisation medical exemptions for health professionals

People enrolled in Medicare are automatically included on the AIR. People who aren’t eligible to enrol in Medicare are added to the AIR when you record vaccination details.

To ensure the accuracy of our data, it’s important to remind patients to notify Medicare of any change to their address and other details.

We take all possible care to avoid adding to the distress of bereaved families. If you know about the death of a patient, contact Medicare.

If you’re a medical practitioner, midwife or nurse practitioner with a Medicare provider number, you’re automatically a recognised vaccination provider and authorised to record or get immunisation data from the AIR.

Read about accessing AIR using HPOS.

If you’re not a medical practitioner, midwife or nurse practitioner with a Medicare provider number, you can apply to become a recognised vaccination provider.

Read about registering and requesting access.

Complete the Australian Immunisation Register - Application to Register as a Vaccination Provider form and send it to your state or territory health department for approval. When we get the approved form, a unique AIR registration number is allocated to identify you as a vaccination provider.

You’ll get a letter with your AIR vaccination provider number. Use this number when you send immunisation details to the AIR.

Vaccination providers should record patient immunisation information on the AIR. The quickest and easiest ways are through Practice Management Software or through the AIR site.

Read more about recording patient information

You can use the AIR through HPOS to record immunisation details, view immunisation histories, request reports and update provider contact details.

Read more about accessing AIR using HPOS

Learn how to record immunisation encounters, immunisation medical exemptions and update vaccine details on the AIR.

Read more about help using AIR online for health professionals

The AIR produces statistical, identified and access reports for authorised vaccination providers registered to use AIR.

Read more about reports available from the AIR secure site

The AIR national due and overdue rules for immunisation information are based on the Australian Immunisation Handbook, to help you better understand how the AIR works.

AIR immunisation stationery order forms:

• Australian Immunisation Register Immunisation stationery order for QLD and NT form
• Australian Immunisation Register Immunisation stationery order for NSW VIC SA WA TAS ACT form

There are vaccine codes for software products that send claims to the AIR through Medicare online claiming.

Read more about AIR vaccine code formats

The AIR produces education modules to help you better understand how the AIR works.