>> -----Original Message----- >> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Simon James >> Sent: Friday, 13 April 2007 9:12 AM >> >> Does anyone have any more to add? > > The fact that the EFTPOS based system will not be linked to our billing > software, so in order to keep a record of each transaction our staff > will have to key it in twice - once into our practice's billing system > and the again into the EFTPOS terminal. This does not seem like > progress. > > Oliver Frank, general practitioner > 255 North East Road, Hampstead Gardens > South Australia 5086 > Ph. 08 8261 1355 Fax 08 8266 5149 M 0407 181 683
Would it be feasible to charge patients a "Medicare processing fee" of say $2 per transaction to cover this inefficiency? My initial thoughts are that Bulk Billed patients don't stand to gain anything from this system, but practices benefit by getting paid sooner by Medicare for these consultations. Fair assumption? Paying patients will be saved a trip to the Medicare office. If I was a patient, I'd be prepared to pay a fair bit for this time saving (especially given the fact that these patients are the ones that require 2-3 swipes, and therefore will be the larger drain on reception resources). Or would it be more appropriate for Medicare to pay practices per EasyClaim transaction to give back some of the windfall they will reap by closing/downsizing Medicare branches? In any case, I expect that Medicare's first priority was to get this system used as widely as possible as quickly as possible. If this system was reliant on clinical software at some stage in the process, I expect the result would have been similar to HIC Online, which took a relatively long time to be accepted/deployed by both practices and software vendors. When integration does start to appear, I'm guessing it will be trivial compared to the ever changing HIC Online requirements software vendors have had to keep up with. I'm assuming that the sort of data transfers that would be needed to integrate clinical software with the EasyClaim system are: 1. Item Number (Clinical software -> EFTPOS Terminal) - time saver 2. Medicare number (EFTPOS -> Clinical software) - probably redundant? 3. Transaction approval/error (EFTPOS -> Clinical software) - irrelevant? 4. Others?? Cheers, Simon -- Simon James Publisher Pulse+IT M: 0402 149 859 F: 02 9475 0029 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.pulsemagazine.com.au PO Box 52 Coogee NSW 2034 _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
