Supply vs Service Demand

Quick links:

∴ Overall statistics

⟶ Supply of optometrists

⟵ Service demand: Medicare items/hours billed

Do the values look a bit low? Medicare items/hours billed...:

Do not capture private billing
Do not capture under-billing or non-billing
Do not capture non-patient time (admin, supervision, etc.)
Assume constant clinical capacity; optoms are not booked at 100% fill-rate all year round

Data provenance and use

Supply:

Supply is estimated using Optometry Board of Australia quarterly general registration counts and National Health Workforce Dataset (NHWDS) allied health workforce annual releases
NHWDS estimates are restricted to active, practising clinicians and are converted to clinical full-time equivalent (FTE) using average weekly clinical hours (updated each year)

Demand:

Geography and adjustments:

All analyses are stratified and, where specified by the source data, adjusted by year and geography (state/territory, Primary Health Network [PHN], and/or Modified Monash Model [MMM])
ABS population is provided at state level; PHN and MMM population denominators are derived by concording ABS SA2 geography to PHN/MMM using Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) correspondence files
Where relevant (e.g., Medicare hours billed), estimates are normalised to local workforce participation by benchmarking to 38 hours/week (full-time) and subtracting leave allowances expressed in weeks of local average clinical hours (annual leave: 4× weekly hours; personal/sick and carer’s leave: 2× weekly hours)

Trend estimation:

Yearly change is estimated using a 3-year rolling log-linear regression of the relevant series
Regression relationships are assumed linear for parsimony unless otherwise specified

Scenario modelling:

Hypothetical workforce reallocation models shift workforce distributions to equate supply and demand proportions across geographies
Years of workforce relief is modelled using a logit drift framework parameterised by observed yearly change rates

Data availability and updates:

All datasets are publicly available; Phoropter Free Fridays (PFF) job-advertisement data are available upon reasonable request
Unauthorised reuse of PFF data is prohibited; external use requires prior written permission
Outputs (including all graphs) are refreshed as new public releases become available

Join HSU

HSU membership is ≈$600–$700/year
(tax-deductible) and provides:

Employee-focused workplace and legal support, led by members and backed by experts
Optometrist workplace delegates, formally trained and protected to represent you
Transparent member fee use
Professional Indemnity Insurance and PLI
Other member benefits and discounts

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