Tamika Seeto* says people could be missing out on money if their bank details aren’t up to date.
Aussies are being urged to check their eligibility to claim millions in unpaid Medicare benefits.
Services Australia is currently holding more than $200 million in unclaimed money, which can be unpaid if people haven’t updated their bank account details.
Minister for Government Services Bill Shorten said the payments were held by Services Australia when a customer’s bank details were not valid.
“Services Australia will try to contact people with held Medicare payments to let them know, however contact details are often also out of date,” Shorten said.
“The quickest and easiest way to check your details with Medicare is through the new myGov app, which is available in the App Store and Google Play.”
More than 1 million people have already downloaded the myGov app since it launched in December 2022 and it takes less than a minute to do.
“After you update your details, Services Australia will usually pay you any unclaimed benefits within a few days,” Shorten said.
If you don’t already have a Medicare account, you can set one up and link it to your myGov account.
How to update your Medicare details
You can update your details by signing into myGov and selecting Medicare.
Then select “View and edit my details” from the “My details” menu.
This will display your current bank details.
If they are out of date and you need to change them, select ‘Edit’ in ‘Bank details’.
Update your bank details and enter your current account name, BSB and account number.
Then select ‘save bank details’.
Services Australia will then confirm your details.
Check these are correct and then close and sign out of myGov.
After you’ve updated your details, Services Australia will automatically identify if you are owed money and will generally pay you any money owed within three days.
*Tamika Seeto is a journalist at Yahoo Finance Australia covering personal finance, work and careers amongst other topics.
This article first appeared at au.finance.yahoo.com.
