> Medicare & RACGP will be at the GPCE in Sydney next month. I'll be visiting > them both about this issue. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Pity the AMA > won't be there, but then they never do any good for GP's in any case.
Hi Cedric, It's my understanding that AMA have been involved in this project from an early stage. Regards, Simon > > Cedric > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of Greg Twyford > Sent: Monday, 16 April 2007 10:18 AM > To: General Practice Computing Group Talk > Subject: Re: [GPCG_TALK] Electronic Medicare Claiming / EasyClaim > > > Simon James wrote: >> >> 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. > > Simon, > > First they had Medclaims, which took a long while to roll-out, then they > laboured over HICOnline/Online claiming, which has long been > under-incentivised, now we have the eftpos device. Same strategy, same > lack of consultation with practices and testing before announcing the > "newest, biggest, thing". > > I think it will just confuse practices and get people's backs up when > they realise how badly it suits practice needs, as opposed to the > government's desire to: > > 1. reduce the operating costs of bulk-billing > > 2. find a way to make move away from high rates of bulk-billing to > private billing more palatable for the electorate. > > Attempts to date of the cost-shifting of Medicare running costs has > already put many practices off. Manual bulk-billing still gets you your > multi-part carbonised forms. Online claiming means you buy paper and > toner/ink. More time processing patient's interaction with Medicare for > them is a significant cost, both for Online Claiming and for the new > system. > > At least the former allows efficient management of practice accounting > and dealing with errors. The new system is shamelessly geared to keeping > patients and the government happy. > > Greg _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
