> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Simon James > Sent: Friday, 13 April 2007 10:25 AM > > Would it be feasible to charge patients a "Medicare > processing fee" of say > $2 per transaction to cover this inefficiency? > I love it. "We are going to charge you more to compensate us for the inefficiencies caused by the government's new online claiming system". If you haven't seen the hairs standing up on the back of Tony Abbott's neck yet, get your comb ready.
> 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? The "get paid sooner" happens only once. Doctors don't seem to be very good at understanding this or at understanding that the "get paid sooner" promise is not a big deal. For example, if the EFTPOS based system pays doctors in 1 day compared to say 7 days, doctors receive 6 days' worth of claims sooner, but only once. It is not an ongoing increase. > > 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). Our patients haven't had to go to the Medicare office for some time. We use the current Medicare Online Claiming system: depending on the patient's wish, the patient either receives the Medicare rebate back into his or her bank account within 2 or 3 days (forgotten exactly and too busy now to look it up), or receives a Medicare benefit cheque in the post. > > 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? Yes. > > 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. There is no reason to expect it to be any easier to manage than what vendors have to do in order to integrate the current Medicare Online Claiming. I had not heard that there were any particular problems or changes being imposed on software vendors with the current Medicare Online Claiming system - what have you been told? 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 _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
