Healthcare identifiers are assigned to healthcare recipients, individual healthcare providers and healthcare provider organisations.

The service operator assigns healthcare identifiers to healthcare recipients. A national registration authority will usually assign a healthcare identifier to an individual healthcare provider, although there are a number of cases in which a healthcare provider is not registered by such an authority. In those cases, the healthcare identifier is assigned by the service operator. The service operator assigns a healthcare identifier to a healthcare provider organisation.

For a healthcare provider organisation to be assigned a healthcare identifier, the organisation must have at least one employee who is an individual healthcare provider providing healthcare as part of his or her duties, a responsible officer and an organisation maintenance officer. The responsible officer may also be the organisation maintenance officer. If the organisation is part of, or subordinate to, another healthcare provider organisation, it need not have its own responsible officer.

A sole practitioner may be registered as a healthcare provider organisation.

If the service operator refuses to assign a healthcare identifier, a person whose interests are affected by the decision may ask the service operator to reconsider the decision. A person may apply to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for review of the service operator's reconsidered decision.

The service operator must keep a record of the healthcare identifiers assigned, and other information relating to the healthcare identifiers including details of requests to the service operator to disclose a healthcare identifier.