Services Australia has announced that Australians can add their Medicare card to their digital wallet in the myGov app. The myGov app was released last year and has a digital wallet where people can securely store some government digital cards and certificates. People can also use the wallet to store their Centrelink concession and health care cards.
The myGov app has features to protect against fraud and theft of all items in the myGov wallet.
Medicare cards and Centrelink concession and health care cards have:
- an animated hologram to show the card is not a screenshot
- a QR code that can be scanned to confirm the card is genuine and valid
- the date and time of when the card was last updated at the bottom of the screen.
If a person is no longer eligible for Medicare, the card will be automatically removed from their myGov app. When a person’s Medicare card expires, it’ll be replaced automatically in their myGov wallet if they’re still eligible.
Accepting a digital Medicare card and scanning the QR code is optional, you don’t have to accept it if you don’t want to. You can still verify a Medicare card in the same way you do now.
You can find more information and instructions on how to scan the QR code on the myGov website.