Interim Medicare card
 

Should a person with a visa giving indefinite stay whilst waiting for PR get a Interim Medicare Card and if so is it renewable every 5 years.

Re: Interim Medicare card
 

Which visa are you on Michael?

Re: Interim Medicare card
 

....and which PR visa have you applied for?

Re: Interim Medicare card
 

There are no visa's apart from PR and a special category visa that allows one to stay indefinitely in Australia. Im going to assume your talking about the 820 visa however which states on one's Vevo they can stay indefinitely even though it's still classed as temporary?

As for interim Medicare card. An interim card only lasts for 6 months and has to be renewed. A full resident Medicare card (Green) has to be renewed every 5 years

Re: Interim Medicare card
 

Hi, my wife and I arrived in Australia with a 804 visa in 2014. Since then I have had to renew our 'Reciprocal Health Care' medicare every year. To quote the Medicare Benefits Service Note AN 0.6 which states that 'The Blue Medicare Card, bearing the words INTERIM CARD is for people who have applied for permanent residence.

According to the My Gov web site. Reciprocal Health Care cards are issued for visitors from approved countries. I would add that both my wife and I are UK citizens with valid UK passports. The web page also states that cards are renewed every 5 years.

With our VEVO giving both my wife and I indefinite stay we could hardly be classified as visitors.

I hope you can shed some light on my query.

Re: Interim Medicare card
 

If you have an 804 visa that's permanent. Do you mean that you have applied for an 804 and are bridging onto it? In which case you have the conditions of the visa you arrived on which was probably a visitor visa. When your 804 is confirmed, that is when you have a confirmed indefinite stay. One of the downsides of being in limbo - it's only interim and renewed regularly.

Re: Interim Medicare card
 

Thanks for the info, I assume that our 804 is confirmed as our VEVO states 'Indefinite stay' However I refer to the MBS note that states an Interim card is for those waiting for PR which would apply to us.

Re: Interim Medicare card
 

If you are actually holding a 804 visa, you are a Permanent Resident.
If you are "waiting for PR" then you are probably on a bridging visa, as QUoll says above, and therefore are probably still on the conditions of whatever visa you arrived on, and are thus bridging from.

When you arrived in Australia, what visa did you hold?

Re: Interim Medicare card
 

You'd know if your 804 was confirmed. I thought you'd have had a few more hoops to jump through - medicals etc - before you get notice that you've become permanent. Checking at the processing dates for the 804 visa it appears that they are only up to applications from December 2012 at the moment so you've got a while to go yet before got are permanent.

Re: Interim Medicare card
 

Thankyou Pollyanna et al for your replies. Yes you are right, we are still on Bridging visas but confused as being granted indefinite stay with the VEVO therefore waiting for the 804 to be approved. However in view of the extremely long wait for that to happen and in view of our age I don't think that will ever happen.
Thanks again
Michael.

Re: Interim Medicare card
 

SO what you really have is a bridging visa which is "indefinite" as there is no definite end date. It will stay in place until you leave Australia without a BVB in place, or until a decision is made on your 804.
Until that decision is made, you are not a Permanent Resident. Its like the temporary Partner Visa, it has no end date but is in place until a PR decision is made.