Senator Ludwig: The Minister for Health has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) The Department of Health and Ageing does not hold this data. (2) The below table shows the number of services and benefits paid by month under the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme since commencement (1 November 2007 to 30 September 2012). Month Services1, 2 Benefit ($)1 November 2007 3,613 404,526 December 2007 12,684 1,533,098 January 2008 20,443 2,413,610 February 2008 40,497 5,192,656 March 2008 94,617 12,292,930 April 2008 140,089 20,981,649 May 2008 129,188 23,255,720 June 2008 116,060 22,645,502 July 2008 83,899 14,816,438 August 2008 177,659 30,263,495 September 2008 193,349 32,461,713 October 2008 161,384 25,821,576 November 2008 167,316 26,366,462 December 2008 179,353 28,888,704 January 2009 161,498 24,155,653 February 2009 203,586 30,300,300 March 2009 258,275 37,254,205 April 2009 245,828 35,282,538 May 2009 277,181 39,929,264 June 2009 271,949 38,553,639 July 2009 320,103 45,488,742 August 2009 318,944 44,394,993 September 2009 343,090 47,175,797 October 2009 339,277 46,206,458 November 2009 357,282 49,319,085 December 2009 329,802 46,509,030 January 2010 251,713 31,933,288 February 2010 356,363 46,715,362 March 2010 438,915 58,356,965 April 2010 355,776 47,204,244 May 2010 436,497 57,176,223 June 2010 429,366 56,029,886 July 2010 435,688 56,835,623 August 2010 451,788 58,565,766 September 2010 484,338 62,869,117 October 2010 459,541 59,623,851 November 2010 510,284 66,754,502 December 2010 443,836 59,471,199 January 2011 322,315 38,440,346 February 2011 455,472 56,301,881 March 2011 579,661 72,791,270 April 2011 447,106 56,681,864 May 2011 570,481 70,170,246 June 2011 550,271 67,878,223 July 2011 538,766 67,549,974 August 2011 616,406 77,249,411 September 2011 595,826 74,683,252 October 2011 578,001 71,479,276 November 2011 675,552 86,298,279 December 2011 612,186 84,202,274 January 2012 415,814 48,810,434 February 2012 557,380 67,715,800 March 2012 657,032 82,532,216 April 2012 507,858 63,601,942 May 2012 681,538 83,179,563 June 2012 573,858 70,972,496 July 2012 618,876 75,255,715 August 2012 623,969 75,920,700 September 2012 927,161 108,799,523 1 Based on the date the claim was processed through Medicare. 2 A 'service' is a Medicare item number. Each visit to the dentist may result in many individual 'services' being billed.