Horst You are correct. In some areas everybody knows everybody. In Sydney in private practice On line claiming very handy & a must
Cedric -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Horst Herb Sent: Monday, 16 October 2006 10:41 AM To: General Practice Computing Group Talk Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: [GPCG_TALK] Billing requirements] On Monday 16 October 2006 10:03, Oliver wrote: > My staff have just confirmed that if the patient decides to pay only > the gap, they can still submit the patient's claim via Medicare Online > Claiming. Medicare then sends a cheque to the patient payable to us, > which the patient is expected to forward to us. This is exactly the > same process as if we (or the patient) had posted a claim form to > Medicare, showing that the patient had paid only the gap. The only > differences are a) that the process of submitting the claim is easier > and quicker via the online system and b) the claim is at Medicare > sooner than if we or the patient had posted it in. we don't do that. Book keeping / reconciliation trouble for such small amounts is just unproportionate. Either online billing gets out the medisare proportion of the bill directly into our accounts, or *they* can keep enjoying the paperwork. For us it's just putting a signature on the printout and submitting the computer generated list to Medicare, for *them* it is enetering all these silly numbers manually thereafter. Can't see where online claims would be helpful to us without direct transfer into our account Either the patient pays in full on the day, or we just bulk bill. So far, in 4 years, I canot recall any patients abusing this mechanism and "deliberately" not having money, but that's probably just because of our tiny community where everybody knows everybody Patients know that when they come to see the doctor, they have to bring the money just as when they go shopping. But they also know that if they are in financial strife, they can come too, and won't have any out of pocket expense. Guess such systems based on mutual trust never would work out in the big smoke Horst _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
