Easyclaim: AMA gains cash payment for GPs
General Practices will receive 18c each time they bill patients
electronically as part of a special deal negotiated between the
AMA and the Federal Government.
The package, worth $75 million over two years, will apply to transactions
made using the older Medicare Online system and the Easyclaim system.
The fees will be paid quarterly and started applying to transactions
from September.
The Government has also announced that rural practices will receive
a one off, $1000 payment ($750 for metro practices) to buy new
software and IT equipment if they adopt Easyclaim or Medicare Online.
Concerns over electronic billing surfaced when the AMA raised
questions over the lack of funding for adopting the EFTPOS-based
system, which basically transferred the work done by Medicare office
to GPs' surgeries - an estimated saving for the Government
of about $200 million.
Trials in some of the 400 Australian practices using Easyclaim
had shown that the average additional time needed to process each
transaction was 2.5 minutes, which could amount to several hours
each day in a large practice.
It led to Federal AMA President Dr Rosanna Capolingua calling
for GPs to be paid in the same way as banks, which receive 23c
for handling each Easyclaim transaction.
Following numerous meetings
between Dr Capolingua and Government Ministers, the new deal was
finally agreed to and announced in late September.
Dr Steve Wilson, Chair of the AMA (WA)'s Council of General
Practice, said while the new deal was a good incentive, the Government
could not continue to shift administration and infrastructure costs
onto the profession without some significant changes in the way
decisions were made.
"Government must allow doctors to have policy input and
to have some ownership of the process," he said. "There
also needs to be decent scoping of the human resources, training
and impact these changes have on the profession.
"Finally, doctors need to be rewarded financially for accommodating
these changes."
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