Hi Oliver, > Was the GP who wrote this talking about Andrew in particular or all GPs in general, and if he is talking about Andrew in particular, why? Does Andrew have some special recall system that other GPs don't?
Well I have been dabbling in IT for >20 years and we have a lot of legacy systems that are still working well and are gradually being replaced with HL7 based ones, Appointments, recalls, reporting etc etc. They all feed Medical-Objects delivery however. I still think Paradox for DOS was an awesome system... and its still running our appointments and recalls :-O, but not for long... > Why would such a notice come from Medical Objects rather than from the > GP's clinical software itself? What's it got to do with Medical Objects? Its via Medical-Objects, not from. On the Sunshine Coast, as in other areas we have >95% of GPs connected. Medical Objects started from Buderim GastroEnterology Centre so locally people equate the 2, but they are separate now. Buderim Gastro gets all the beta stuff, as do other local specialists. > >> The GP can then contact the patient to discuss this, see if it is >> appropriate, give a referal (or send it directly via Medical Objects >> which removes the forgotten referal issue), > and treat >> all the other issues that inevitably arise during a GPs consultation. >> This is a good >> system that works for you, works for us, and works for patients. > > If the GP contacts the patient and the patient says that he or she does > not need to see the specialist again, how much do you think that it > would be reasonable for the GP charge the patient for having contacted > him or her about the possible need for a new referral, and documenting > the telephone/email/postal discussion with the patient? Well some patients clinical state has changed a lot in 3 or 5 years and the follow up may not be appropriate. Many of these patients are due for colonoscopy and the GP can decide if its still appropriate. >> Without digital Signatures on GP Referrals sending them electronically >> is a pandoras box - If the HIC audit the specialist, then without a >> digitally signed referral or a signed paper copy they are liable for >> prosecution > > Technically they are, but are you aware of any specialist having been > prosecuted for having only a scanned copy of a referral, or for > accepting a referral that arrived by encrypted email without a digital > signature? I would ask Medicare Australia, but I am not going to, > because when the answer came back in several months' time it would be > vague and it would not answer the question. > >> , or at least a lot of ringing around!. > > Not much ringing around. Maximum of one call per referral being looked > at, since each GP is likely to refer more than one patient to most of > the specialists that he or she uses. I guess its a different perspective from a specialist point of view, when we started trialling Medical-Objects I twisted a lot of Specialists friends arms to try it and I can't imagine they would be 2 happy ringing 100 GPs to get copies of referrals on a total of 500 patients. Thats a nightmare that I do not want to feature prominently in! If you do not digitally sign the referral the you you should send the paper as well. If for some reason you are not available to supply one of the referrals in question I doubt the HIC would be happy. I am sure its a big department and I am sure they are capable of shaking one hand an saying "this electronic stuff is great keep it up", while the are slapping the other one saying :You failed to comply with the rules, we want $200,000 dollars back thank you". We do allow GPs to send results electronically without HESA PKI signatures (they are all digitally signed with PGP) but the free client is locked to a Hesa token or smartcard atm. It also allows it to be free of the need for any registration/authentication as Hesa has done all that work. Andrew McIntyre _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
