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The AMA continues to work hard in this space – at state, territory and federal levels.

I have begun working with AMA Victoria colleagues to seriously up the ante in this red hot area. We are working on a raft of initiatives to address those issues which give us all “a red tape headache”.

The 2011-12 AMA’s survey of what robs us of valuable consulting, and gives us the willies the most are Centrelink forms, PBS Authority prescription phone authorisations and Workers’ Comp/Work Cover requirements.

The AMA in its recent submission to the National Commission of Audit called for all Centrelink and Department of Veterans’ Affairs forms to be simplified and integrated into practice software. We have asked for a moratorium on the production of new forms unless there is full consultation with the AMA and the mandate that they are produced in auto-populating, software enabled templates.

We have also highlighted the unnecessary administrative burden of Phone Authority scripts for medical practitioners. So great is the time wastage, if scrapped, it would return an estimated 300,000-400,000 patient consultations a year.

Given how long previous governments have sat on the recommendations of the Productivity Commission’s now ancient report, it is refreshing to hear the Abbott Government is undertaking to review and streamline red tape for General Practice. The AMA keenly awaits the recommendations of the Audit Commission.

Although Workers’ Compensation is under state and territory jurisdictions, there is definitely scope for a national series of WC Certificates as well as simplifying and digitising the forms, provided each state/ territory WorkCover is willing to work with the AMA to do so.

Since 2011 surveying work, the AMA has worked with Centrelink to improve and streamline its Medical Certificate and Medical Report forms.

I do emphasise, that while these forms can now be completed and lodged electronically via the Health Professional Online Service (HPOS) portal (and reports lodged this way prefill with the provider details, can be saved and used as the basis for generating new reports), for me this is still not good enough.

The problems with existing forms, particularly those that are hard copy or if electronic, PDF fillable are:

1. Medical practitioner still has to complete the patient’s non-clinical information e.g. name, address, employer etc.
2. Handwritten signatures are still required in most cases.
3. Forms have to be faxed – rather than electronically lodged.
4. Poor design, and every design is different.
5. Loss of good formatting when brought into practice software templates.
6. Inadequate space for clinically necessary responses – generally only a couple of lines to encourage brevity.

At AMACoGP we are advising on above issues – moreover, why is it necessary that the form be completed with the patient present and a proper fee for professional time when they’re not.

If government has issues with the profession e.g. what are common errors in completing the forms, then we will work with government and regulators to address these matters.

Further we need national conformity to desirable targets, not ad hoc state-by-state achievements. For example, in Workers’ Comp issues, WorkCover SA pays an added fee for electronic submission of SA WC certificates. The eWMC can be saved directly to the patient database and securely emailed to WorkCover SA using a digital certificate issued by the Federal Government’s Health eSignature Authority (HeSA).

There has been extensive direct support to practices to take up these initiatives and maintain adherence, so ‘reasons to buy in’ and ‘help to do so’.

Taking up AMAVIC’s lead, the AMA (WA) and I will be pushing for national standards for all forms, which must meet agreed minimum criteria – e.g. that all forms be electronic, be compatible with major medical software, distribution of same be coordinated through the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA), that all Privacy Act provisions be met, be auto-populating, that inputted data be only that which the practitioner specifically is required to address, that there be remuneration for all such work be it by insurers, government, W/Comp bodies or the patient themselves, thus valuing GPs’ time.

Finally these forms must be e-messaging compliant, transmitted in a secure format, digitally signed, be of reasonable size for database storage and must be well field tested and approved by the profession before broader release.

So in that perfect world sometime in the near future, imagine a day filled with standardised templates for all compliance paperwork including referrals and certificates, no authority prescription phoning, nationally consistent WorkCover forms, even Death and Cremation certificates and every single Centrelink form  electronically enabled and attracting appropriate remuneration.

Bring it on!