Struggling families are missing out on vital payments during the cost of living crisis, with new figures revealing Services Australia is sitting on more than 232,000 claims that are yet to be processed after more than 90 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following table lists the number of social security and welfare claims and health work on hand at Services Australia as at 25 March 2024 that are older than 90 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Opposition obtained the data following a series of parliamentary Questions in Writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shadow Minister for Government Services Paul Fletcher said the figures are a stark reminder of the Albanese Labor Government\u2019s shocking mismanagement of this crucial agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVital Centrelink and Medicare claims are gathering dust under the Albanese Labor Government because there is zero focus on delivering great customer service,\u201d Mr Fletcher said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFamilies are doing it tough and need claims processed quickly and efficiently. Instead, they are being subjected to an unacceptably slow system that makes life harder for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s the point of having a timeliness standard if you\u2019re not going to get anywhere near achieving it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBill Shorten is doing a terrible job as Minister and needs to demonstrate leadership. Simply boosting Canberra\u2019s bureaucracy and pleasing the unions isn\u2019t good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Struggling families are missing out on vital payments during the cost of living crisis, with new figures revealing Services Australia is sitting on more than 232,000 claims that are yet to be processed after more than 90 days. The following table lists the number of social security and welfare claims and health work on hand … Continue reading “More than 232,000 Centrelink and Medicare cases left dormant”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27021,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27020\/revisions\/27021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/td> 90-129 days<\/strong><\/td> 130-199 days<\/strong><\/td> 200+ days<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> Social security and welfare<\/strong><\/td> 27,022<\/td> 15,552<\/td> 7,013<\/td><\/tr> Health<\/strong><\/td> 62,502<\/td> 63,622<\/td> 57,126<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The agency\u2019s own timeliness standard requires that the majority of social security and welfare claims are processed within 30 days, while the majority of claims submitted digitally under the Medicare Benefit Schedule are required to be processed within 7 days of lodgement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n