Tier 2 Non-Admitted Services Classification development

The current Tier 2 Non-Admitted Services Classification (Tier 2) was developed based on the National Hospital Cost Data Collection (NHCDC) list of clinics. In 1997, an Outpatient Costing and Classification Study was commissioned by the Commonwealth. This study resulted in the Developmental Ambulatory Classification System (DACS). While DACS was never implemented, the list of clinics from the study formed the list of Tier 2 classes in the NHCDC. This data was first collected in Round 3 (1997–98) of the NHCDC and has been reported in each year since.

In 2011, the list of Tier 2 classes was updated to accommodate the increase in services that were previously provided as inpatient services now being undertaken as outpatient services. This also included a full review of the classification in response to the National Health Reform Agreement.

The aim was to develop a classification system for use with non-admitted outpatient services for activity based funding purposes. The outcome of the review was the publication of Version 1.0 of the Tier 2 Outpatient Clinic Definitions. The table below details the names of the Tier 2 versions, the corresponding National Efficient Price (NEP) and number of classes for each version.