Medicare Provider Number

Detects Medicare Provider Number patterns. An 8-character code consisting of 6 digits, a location character, and a check character. Validated by location and check character sets.

Type: regex
Engine: universal
Confidence: medium
Confidence justification: Medium confidence: the constrained character sets for location and check positions provide moderate specificity. Corroborative keywords are recommended to reduce false positives from 8-character alphanumeric strings.
Detection quality: Partial
Jurisdictions: au
Regulations: HRIPA (Cth), IPA 2009 (Qld), My Health Records Act 2012 (Cth), NDB Scheme (Cth), Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)
Frameworks: ISO 27001, ISO 27701, SOC 2
Data categories: pii, government-id
Scope: narrow
Risk rating: 8
Platform compatibility: Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Compatible, Netskope: Compatible

Pattern

\b\d{6}[0-9A-HJKLMNPQRTUVWXY][ABFHJKLTWXY]\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

Medicare, provider number, Medicare provider, IHI, Individual Healthcare Identifier, healthcare identifier, HPI, HPI-I, HPI-O, provider identifier, AHPRA, registration number, prescriber number, PBS prescriber, pharmaceutical benefits, MRN, medical record number, patient ID, NPI, DEA (+5 more)

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

123456AW — Medicare provider number with valid location and check chars
000000AA — Low-range provider number
999999YX — High-range provider number

Should not match

12345AW — Only 5 digits instead of 6
123456AI — Invalid check character (I not in valid set ABFHJKLTWXY)
123456AS — Invalid check character (S not in valid set ABFHJKLTWXY)

Known false positives

Common words and phrases related to medicare provider number appearing in policy documents, training materials, HR templates, or compliance guidelines without actual personal data. Mitigation: Require corroborative evidence keywords within the proximity window to confirm sensitive data context rather than general discussion.
In Australian English, similar terminology used in formal or administrative contexts (education, professional documentation) that does not constitute sensitive data collection. Mitigation: Layer with additional contextual signals such as structured identifiers, form fields, or database column headers to distinguish sensitive records from general references.